For Seniors: Effective Recreation for Preventing Care Needs—Have Fun While Staying Healthy
For the physical and mental well-being of older adults, rehabilitation that involves moving the arms and legs is ideal.
However, simply following a set rehabilitation routine doesn’t always lead to motivation.
In this article, we introduce enjoyable recreational activities that contribute to arm and leg rehabilitation for older adults.
From group activities that everyone can get excited about to options you can focus on individually, you’ll surely find fun ways to work on functional improvement.
Choose according to each person’s physical and mental condition.
We hope you find this helpful.
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- [For Seniors] Easy and fun seated activities you can do in your room
- [For Seniors] Introducing Recreational Activities Anyone Can Enjoy at Geriatric Health Facilities!
- [For Seniors] Leg and lower-back training: Fall prevention
- For seniors: Leg-strengthening exercises you can do without overexertion.
- Recreation Activities Effective for Long-Term Care Prevention for Seniors
[For Seniors] Effective for Preventing Need for Care! Fun Recreational Activities (91–100)
Patakara Song: Spring Has Come
Why not try training your chewing and swallowing abilities to the familiar children’s song “Haru ga Kita” (Spring Has Come)? It’s simple: just replace the lyrics of the well-known song with the syllables pa-ta-ka-ra and sing them out loud.
You can do it anywhere, without worrying about the location.
In senior care facilities, it’s helpful for staff to demonstrate the method so no one is unsure how to do it.
Doing the exercise before meals can better prevent aspiration, so if you explain the purpose and benefits in advance, participants are likely to join more actively.
Count numbers alternately
Aren’t there many senior and welfare facilities that incorporate finger exercises? Counting with your fingers is said to be a simple yet very profound exercise.
Make a fist with one hand and, with the other hand, raise the same number of fingers as the number you say out loud.
Alternate between left and right.
Once you get used to it, try adding movements such as clapping in between or crossing your hands.
This increases the difficulty.
Performing multiple actions at the same time is also said to help prevent falls.
Inchworm Brain Training Exercise
Let’s stimulate your brain with a finger play that mimics an inchworm’s movement.
Inchworms move by stretching and contracting their bodies, right? We’ll recreate that motion with your fingers as a hand game.
Touch the tips of your index finger and thumb together on both hands.
From there, bend one thumb and touch it to the index finger of the other hand.
Then alternate by bending an index finger to touch the thumb on the other hand, and keep repeating this pattern.
The motion looks like an inchworm, doesn’t it? At first, it can be hard to make each finger meet the opposite one smoothly, but working to make the connections is said to help activate your brain.
Hand and mouth Pa-Ta-Ka-Ra exercises
We would like to introduce ideas for the Patakara exercises, which allow you to care for your mouth and get some exercise while seated in a chair.
By pronouncing “pa,” “ta,” “ka,” and “ra” while performing full-body movements, these exercises are highly efficient, benefiting not only your physical function but also helping to maintain and improve oral function.
In addition, because you perform two actions simultaneously—movement and pronunciation—the increased positive stimulation to the brain is expected to help prevent cognitive decline.
It may feel complicated at first, but please try it slowly at your own pace.
An exercise that can prevent aspiration and choking just by reading aloud: the Pa-Ta-Ka-Ra exercise
Patakara exercises are exercises that stimulate oral functions through pronunciation.
This time, we’ll introduce a method that uses reading aloud.
All you need to do is read the sentences written on a whiteboard out loud, so you can proceed at your own pace.
Another advantage is that if you jot the sentences down, you can do the exercises anywhere, including at home.
Benefits include improving chewing strength to aid digestion, enhancing swallowing ability to prevent accidental aspiration and the pneumonia it can cause, and increasing saliva production, which helps sterilize and disinfect the mouth.
Doing the exercises before meals can make them even more effective.