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] Leg and lower-back training: Fall prevention
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- Recreation Activities Effective for Long-Term Care Prevention for Seniors
[For Seniors] Effective for Preventing the Need for Care! Fun Recreational Activities (291–300)
Recreation using a bat and ball
This is a recreation activity where everyone sits in a circle and passes a ball or a stick to the next person, increasing the elements to think about by changing how the item is passed.
Start with a simple movement—passing a stick or ball to the person next to you—then, once everyone gets the feel for it, branch out into different forms.
For example, if you balance a ball on a stick and pass it along, it tests your sense of balance; clarifying which ability you want participants to focus on is an important point when designing the rules.
After setting the rules, increasing the speed or the number of items further stimulates brain activity.
Stick Catch
We all want to stay healthy and live long, don’t we? Try using a newspaper-stick catch game as a way to help prevent the need for care.
Divide older adults into pairs and have them sit facing each other in chairs.
One person throws a stick made from rolled-up newspaper with one hand to their partner, who catches it with one hand as well.
In the actions of throwing and catching, it’s important to see how well the pair can synchronize with each other! Why not try this recreation activity, which lets you enjoy communication while addressing lack of exercise and working on care prevention?
Easy Stepper
It’s structured so that when you press down with one foot, the other is pushed upward, and you alternate pressing with each foot.
By focusing your attention on the force of the press, you’ll learn how to move your feet and apply power during walking.
Since it’s a simple exercise you can do while seated by just moving your feet, a key point is that you can train your feet while doing something else, like reading a book.
During regular walking, you often need to pay attention to your surroundings, so there are times when you can’t fully focus on your feet.
By doing this ankle-moving exercise while engaged in another activity, your everyday walking may become smoother.
Song Exercise: Frog Chorus
Let’s try some exercises using a familiar rainy-season children’s song! Here are ideas for a sing-and-move activity with “The Frog Chorus.” Many of you may have played it as a round before.
This time, let’s try a recreation that can also be used for music therapy, brain training, and as a form of exercise.
At first, it’s fine just to be present in the activity space.
Once you feel more comfortable, you can start by only singing, or only doing the exercises… It would be great if interest gradually grows step by step.
Song Exercise: Snail
You can use it even in the little breaks between activities! Here are some ideas for a sing-and-exercise routine using “Snail.” Isn’t the children’s song “Snail” one that everyone has heard before? Let’s enjoy the rainy season with song and exercise.
Singing out loud can really clear your mind! And by adding simple movements, you’ll likely stimulate both the brain and the body.
It’s okay if you mess up the choreography.
You can easily try it while making your own adjustments, so be sure to give it a go.
Stretches to make walking easier
This is an exercise you can do while seated, moving your feet thoroughly to loosen the calf muscles and ankles.
Loosening the calves—often called the “second heart”—helps improve overall blood circulation, and making ankle movements smoother can lead to easier walking and help prevent falls.
The routine involves repeating motions such as alternately lifting the toes and heels, and opening the feet inward and outward in turn, so you can get a feel for how the ankles move.
It’s also recommended to include movements that lift the entire foot upward to bring awareness to the whole lower body.
[For Seniors] Effective for Preventing the Need for Long-Term Care! Fun Recreational Activities (301–310)
Mito Komon Exercise
This is an exercise routine that moves the whole body to the theme song of Mito Kōmon, a staple of period dramas.
Because it uses a song everyone knows, the music itself is enjoyable.
Despite its powerful feel, the song’s gentle tempo is another key point; moving your body while catching the rhythm helps you generate strength.
Once you get used to moving along with the music, doing it while singing is also recommended, as it is expected to help improve cognitive function.