Play Activities Program for nursing home residents with chronic pain

Participants in the experimental group nursing homes will receive the 8-week Play Activities Program (PAP). The PAP is a protocol-driven intervention which consists of one session per week for a total of 8 weeks. It is conducted in a group format with an emphasis on teamwork and learning various pain management techniques via game activities. Participants are encouraged to sit together in small groups of 5 to 6 for group activities in every session so as to create social bonding. The PAP will be carried out in the multi-function room, preferably with comfortable chairs, adequate lighting, and comfortable ventilation. Each session lasts for 60 minutes. At the beginning of each session, participants will complete 10 minutes of physical exercises including towel dancing; correct body posture and alignment; stretching of arms, legs, and body muscles performed together under the supervision and monitoring of the research team. Then follow by 40 minutes play activities and 10 minutes of portfolio entry. Research assistant with nursing or health-care background will facilitate in the sessions. Examples of the play activities include: Session One: Participants will will watch a series of photographs of the natural environment displayed by a projector for 10 minutes. They will be asked to choose the photographs that they like the most. Session Two: Each participant will be given a piece of paper and a few balls of cotton wool; the cotton wool balls will be placed on top of the participants’ sheet of paper. The participants need to blow the cotton wool onto the paper of the next person. Session Three: The participants will be asked to hold a piece of cloth (6 feet x 3 feet in size) using both hands and to move a light ball from one side of the cloth to the other side. There will be several holes in the cloth and the participants will have to work together to prevent the ball from falling into these holes. Session Four: The participants will be given colourful paper, and they will make paper flowers and leaves. Session Five: All participants will be seated in a big circle and together they will hold a 6-metre parachute. They will work together, using both hands to throw the parachute in the air and then release their hands, so that the parachute will stay up for 2-3 seconds before coming down; Session Six: All participants will sit in a big circle. One person will be invited to stand in front of the group for 30 seconds. The person will then hide in a secret place and modify his/her look. This person will return to the group and the participants will point out the changes that were made. Session Seven: Each participant will be given a small handbag made of plain cloth and will be invited to decorate their handbag with stickers. Session Eight: The final session will be a summary of the previous sessions. The participants will play with the parachute (as in Session Four) and avoid pain traps (as in Session Three). They will be encouraged to bring out their flowers and handbags as a reminder to shine like flowers and lead a pain-free life (as in Session Seven). To ensure the adherence and compliance to protocol content and process, regular meetings will be held among the research team and nursing home staff; also, we shall carefully recruit, thoroughly train, provide ongoing and onsite supervision of research personnel. The consistency of research personnel training will be provided by the principal investigator. Register of attendance at each session will be done;