The Meaningful Engagement Assessment for Residents with Dementia in Assisted Living Settings

Providing meaningful activity is a critical dimension of person-centered care for residents with dementia in all settings, including assisted living. Defined broadly as participation in physical, social, and leisure activities that provide meaning and value to the person and are tailored to individualized interests and preferences, meaningful activity has implications for well-being, mental health, cognition, and physical function. Assisted living residents with dementia would benefit from having more opportunities to engage in meaningful activity. There is a need to develop and assess practical tools to help assisted living staff evaluate preferences and identify opportunities to engage residents with dementia in meaningful activity. To address this need, we developed the Meaningful Engagement Assessment tool. Based on implementation of this tool with 31 residents in 2 assisted living communities, we provide a description of the feasibility and recommendations for strategies to facilitate the successful implementation of this tool in practice.