Recommended recreational activities to help seniors enjoy their time in care facilities
Various recreational activities are held daily at nursing care facilities such as day services to help maintain and improve physical function, relieve stress, and promote interaction with others.
However, many people may struggle with questions like: What kinds of activities will seniors actually enjoy? I can’t think of good ideas.
In this article, we introduce recreational activities that seniors can enjoy at care facilities.
We’ve gathered a variety of options, including light physical exercises, vocal activities, and hands-on crafting.
We hope you’ll use these ideas as inspiration for your daily recreational programs!
- [For Seniors] Simple Recreational Activities You Can Enjoy While Seated
- [For Seniors] Enjoyment at Day Care: A Roundup of Games and Recreational Activities
- [Evolving Daycare Services] A summary of engaging recreational initiatives that excite older adults
- [March Health Topic] Introducing Recreational Activities for Seniors!
- For Seniors: Effective Recreation for Preventing Care Needs—Have Fun While Staying Healthy
- [For Seniors] Today’s Recommended Activity: Fun and Engaging
- [For Seniors] Fun and Engaging Brain-Training Recreation
- For Seniors: Enjoy Every Day! A Collection of Senior Recreation Ideas
- [For Seniors] Introducing Recreational Activities Anyone Can Enjoy at Geriatric Health Facilities!
- [Elderly Day Service] Let’s all have fun! Games and recreational activities
- Enjoy a Comfortable Hospital Stay! Fun Pastime Activities Recommended for Seniors
- [For Seniors] Fun! Games and Ideas to Boost Memory
- [November Health Topic] Indoor Recreation Ideas for Older Adults
Recommended Recreational Activities to Help Seniors Enjoy Their Time at Care Facilities (111–120)
Korokoro Pon Game
Here’s a tabletop game that uses balls.
Prepare balls of different sizes, such as ping-pong balls or rubber balls about the size of a fist.
An older adult rolls a ball from one end of the table.
On the opposite side of the table from where the older adult is rolling, hang a basket.
The game is to roll the ball and get it into this basket.
It can be played while seated, so it seems suitable for older adults who use wheelchairs as well.
Moments like “It almost went in but didn’t!” are likely to make it exciting for the participants.
Recommended Recreational Activities (121–130) for Older Adults to Enjoy at Care Facilities
Gum-Gum Kick Bowling
It’s a game where a newspaper ball is connected to your foot with a rubber band, and you try to kick it to knock down milk-carton pins in front of you.
It tests fine control of your foot—like whether you can bring the ball into a good kicking position and transfer your kicking power effectively.
You can also see individual styles: will you focus on a single, concentrated kick to topple as many pins as possible, or prioritize speed by kicking repeatedly? You can adjust the difficulty by changing the length of the rubber band or the size of the ball, so let’s have people try it in various configurations.
3 Fun Rubber Band Games
Rubber is characterized by its springy motion, and controlling your strength is necessary to make it move the way you want.
Let’s take on games that use rubber’s movement to help improve strength control and concentration.
In Rubber Rubber Shooter, you’ll feel the force used to launch; in Rubber Rubber Kick Bowling, the force of the rebound; and in Rubber Rubber Curling, the nuances of delicate movement.
By paying attention to how the way you apply force affects how it springs back and by adjusting that force, you’ll likely find your movements become smoother in everyday life as well.
Get it with dice
Here’s a dice game you can enjoy using items from a 100-yen shop.
All you need are a die, some balls, and three baskets.
Put the balls into one of the baskets, then place one basket for yourself and one for your opponent—now you’re ready! Take turns rolling the die and move the number of balls shown into your own basket.
Continue until there are no balls left.
The player with the most balls at the end wins.
Because luck plays a big role, differences in ability are minimized, so anyone can enjoy it.
Rolling the die and picking up the balls also serve as upper-limb functional training, and counting the numbers can provide cognitive training benefits.
Give it a try!
Sheet Valley
Let’s play Seat Volleyball using sunshades sold at 100-yen stores.
It’s a game that many older adults can enjoy.
Connect two sunshades to make a volleyball court.
Have seated older adults hold the two connected sunshades.
Roll a beach volleyball on top of the sunshades.
Before starting, use tape or similar to mark territories on the sunshades.
When the time limit is up, the side where the ball is located loses.
With gameplay similar to real volleyball, older adults are likely to enjoy it.
Since it can be played while seated, many older participants should be able to join.
Gesture Game
This is a “gesture game” where players move their bodies to give answers.
Because the gesture game requires you to deduce the answer from only a few clues—such as movements without sounds or speech—it can be expected to have brain-training benefits.
Additionally, performing movements that lead to the answer and observing others can help refresh both body and mind.
For older adults who may find it difficult to move around, try preparing prompts that can be gestured while seated in a chair.
The silent movements can feel humorous, and there are plenty of elements that make the game lively, such as figuring out the answer from the actions.
Please give it a try.
Preventing dementia with rock-paper-scissors uchiwa (fan)
This is a large uchiwa fan illustrated with the hand shapes used in rock-paper-scissors—rock, scissors, and paper.
The person standing at the front uses the fan to show a hand, and everyone else thinks of the corresponding hand to play.
After seeing the hand that’s shown, participants decide and then show their own hands.
Have them consider not only winning responses but also losing ones.
On the back of the fan, numbers are written; by inserting a step where they determine which hand each number represents, the activity further trains their reasoning skills.