Abstract
Adult day services (ADS) are effective at meeting the needs of individuals with disabilities and even their caregivers. ADS programs provide services for adults with physical and mental impairments that are out-of-home. The out-of-home services include medical care, socialization, transportation, health monitoring, and therapeutic activities (Guaugler et al., 2003). Studies show that caregivers who are fully utilizing ADS over longer periods of time is assisting with reducing their depression, negative appraisals, and other psychosocial outcomes (Gottlieb & Johnson, 2000). ADS programs do not replace other services for the care recipient; however, it is seen as a supplemental assistance service for those who choose to utilize the services the ADS program is offering.
The purpose of this project is to create a recreation therapy pilot program plan, that can be introduced to an adult day service facility such as the Milieu Center to implement aquatic therapy for the clients. Although the Milieu Center is offering a variety of services for the clients, aquatic therapy has not been implemented as a facilitation technique within the recreation therapy program. By using the Milieu Center to introduce and execute the recreation therapy pilot program plan will provide insight of the overall aquatic therapy program and can be implemented in other facilities that are interested in aquatic therapy. The pilot program plan includes a curriculum with evaluation information that is providing all recreation therapy staff members at the Milieu Center to utilize the aquatic therapy pilot program for therapeutic services. The project is being designed as an optional Summer Outing for the clients to experience. Several considerations for the programming were assessed throughout the process of creating the aquatic therapy pilot program plan and evaluation for the Milieu Center. The exploration and reviewing of the literature, along with connections from the university, identifying the population, and finding an aquatic center is important in the planning process.