Ria’s Escape Room

Trains caregivers about people-oriented care

Ria loves Ajax. She is very proud of her grandchildren and she always went on holiday with her brother. Ria needs care, but that care will work better if it is more than just practical help. Getting to know your patients is vital, but how do you do it without involving too much time and effort? The workload in healthcare is already heavy enough, without any additional requirements. Playing Ria’s Escape Room will show how you can get to know someone in ten minutes, without effort in a playful environment.

This is how it works

Ria’s Escape Room is a box filled with Ria’s items, which you use to set up the scene of play. In an Escape Room, players are presented with puzzles that they can only solve by working together, paying close attention to the environment and discussing things thoroughly with each other. An Escape Room does not only serve as entertainment; it is also a method an organization can use to promote a solution for a problem and to stimulate transformation. In a classic Escape Room you have to solve puzzles to discover an escape route, but the goal in Ria’s Escape Room is to get to know Ria better and better through the play. There are clues about her life everywhere. The puzzles provide information about her passions, hobbies, family and background.

In the 60 minutes that it takes to play the game, you learn more about Ria than in a conversation, no matter how in-depth it might be. You might notice that Ria is an Ajax fan right away, but how can you tell that she is so proud of her grandchildren? What reveals that? The Escape Room method triggers empathy and stimulates observation. You learn to pay attention to all sorts of elements in an environment, no matter how trivial, because every detail can contribute to knowledge about a person’s life and thus about the care that he or she needs. Putting together the pieces of the puzzle that creates a clear picture of someone’s life is incredibly satisfying. Getting to know someone in this way is a pleasant and playful experience.