Recreation Activities Effective for Long-Term Care Prevention for Seniors
This article introduces recommended recreational activities for preventing the need for long-term care.
We’ve gathered a wide range of options, including exercises and games that move the hands and feet, as well as quizzes that engage the mind.
Doing recreational activities is effective for physical rehabilitation and dementia prevention.
You can also expect benefits like increased appetite and improved sleep quality as your activity level rises.
It’s also a great opportunity to interact with other older adults who are participating.
Please use this article as a reference and enjoyably put it to use for care prevention.
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[For Seniors] Recreational Activities Effective for Preventing the Need for Long-Term Care (161–170)
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?
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.
clothespin chain
Do you know where muscle strength in older adults starts to decline? The answer is that it begins with the fingertips.
When fingertip strength decreases, it can affect daily life—for example, making it difficult to get dressed or causing more food to be dropped while eating.
Try using clothespins to train the fingertips.
Set up a string slightly higher than the head height of a seated older adult.
Then attach clothespins to the string.
It’s a simple activity, but it provides fingertip movement training with minimal strain on the body.
It can also be done as a game while chatting with people around you.
Take as many clothespins as you like
Let me introduce a recreation activity you can do using only items you already have at home: the Clothespin Scoop.
All you need are clothespins, spoons, and a container to put the clothespins in.
You can use a bowl as a substitute for the container.
Place the clothespins on a table and hold a spoon in each hand.
Using only the spoons, transfer the clothespins into the container.
It’s fine to use both hands.
It may look simple, but using both hands simultaneously increases stimulation to the brain, turning it into enjoyable brain training.
You can also do it on the floor instead of the table to change the working height; doing it in a squat adds balance training and lower-body exercise at the same time.
Bomb Game
It’s a game where players take turns answering with words that fit the given theme, while passing a ball that contains a timer to the next person.
It tests both your creativity to quickly come up with words from the theme and your reflexes to swiftly pass the ball.
Although the time limit is announced, the timer is inside the ball and can’t be seen, so you don’t know exactly when it will go off, which adds a sense of tension to the game.
The act of retrieving words from memory while moving your body also helps stimulate the brain.
Catch with a ball on one leg
This is a recreational activity aimed at strengthening the power used to move the legs by rolling a ball with your foot and passing it to the next person.
Because you perform the entire sequence—catching the incoming ball and rolling it—using only one leg, you can really focus on how you move your foot.
Whether you kick the ball to roll it or use the sole of your foot will change the ball’s speed, so be mindful of that as you proceed.
Once you get used to it, it’s recommended to increase the cognitive challenge by getting creative with where you roll the ball or by increasing the number of balls.