[For Seniors] Recommended Even for People with Dementia! Simple Recreational Activities
Recreation activities conducted at nursing and care facilities aim to improve brain and physical functions.
They are said to help activate the brain and can be expected to prevent dementia or slow its progression.
However, it is also important to maintain emotional well-being through feelings like “this is fun, I feel happy” and communication with others.
If people push themselves too hard for functional improvement and the things they “can’t do” become a source of stress, they won’t be able to enjoy the activities.
So this time, we’re introducing “simple recreation” ideas!
These are easy, accessible activities designed for older adults to enjoy.
Please feel free to make use of them.
- [For Seniors] Easy and fun seated activities you can do in your room
- Simple games for preventing and improving dementia
- [For Seniors] Fun Recreational Activities Without Equipment
- Recommended recreational activities for older adults with dementia
- [Brain Training for Seniors] Recommended Hand-Play Recreation for Dementia Prevention
- [For Seniors] Fun and Engaging Brain-Training Recreation
- [Elderly Day Service] Let’s all have fun! Games and recreational activities
- [For Seniors] A Collection of Fun Classic Caregiving Activities
- [For Seniors] Today’s Recommended Activity: Fun and Engaging
- Hand games that liven things up for seniors—also great brain training
- [For Seniors] Easy to try. Fun, crowd-pleasing recreation
- [For Seniors] Simple Recreational Activities You Can Enjoy While Seated
- For Seniors: Effective Recreation for Preventing Care Needs—Have Fun While Staying Healthy
[For Seniors] Recommended for People with Dementia Too! Easy Recreational Activities (71–80)
Cognicise using the twelve zodiac signs
This is an exercise that matches the twelve zodiac animals, using hand claps and poses imitating each animal.
Sit in a chair and start by stepping in place while reciting the twelve zodiac signs.
Choose two animals, and when those animals come up, add hand claps.
You can also assign different movements based on each participant’s zodiac sign to vary the actions.
Feel free to increase the difficulty by adding more movements, such as imitating the animals or tapping the thighs.
Challenging more complex tasks is said to activate the brain efficiently.
It might also be fun to include the animals’ sounds.
For animals like the Dragon or Rabbit, whose sounds aren’t obvious, inviting older adults to imagine and create their own sounds could make the activity enjoyable.
Word Bingo!
Let’s enjoy a wordplay-based bingo game called Word Bingo! The bingo card has 9 squares, and you fill them with words that match a given theme.
For example, if the theme is “words that start with ‘ka,’” you fill the squares with words that begin with ‘ka’ that you can think of.
When the representative announces their nine ‘ka’ words, check whether any of them match the words on your card; if they do, mark them.
You win when you complete a line vertically, horizontally, or diagonally.
A great thing about this bingo is that it’s fun for large groups.
Let’s find words within a word.
I’d like to introduce a game where everyone can play at the same time and get excited: a “find words inside a word” game.
In this game, you rearrange or extract letters from a given target word and see how many other words you can make.
For example, if the target is “とうもろこし” (corn), you can make words like “うし” (cow) or “しも” (frost).
Decide on a target word and a time limit, and you can compete to see who can find the most words.
You can also share with each other, saying, “Here are the words I found.”
combined paper cup
Here’s an introduction to a recreational activity called “Combining Paper Cups.” Prepare one rubber band with several strings tied to it.
Using the rubber band setup, pick up a paper cup and stack it onto another.
Adjust the rubber band by pulling or loosening the strings.
It’s a fun game that also provides gentle arm exercise, making it highly recommended.
Because it’s done with several people, it naturally encourages cooperation and interaction, which helps promote communication.
Talking with others also stimulates the brain, offering potential brain-training benefits.
The interaction itself becomes something to look forward to and can help you feel more lively and positive each day.
Treasure Hunt Game
It’s a “treasure hunt game” where you hide a beanbag under a paper cup and guess where it is.
The rules are simple, so it seems likely that many older adults would be able to join.
Preparation is easy too—just get some paper cups and a beanbag.
Remembering which cups don’t have the beanbag helps stimulate the brain.
Lifting the cups also serves as hand and arm training.
This time it’s a game to guess the hidden beanbag, but you can enjoy it with variations.
Draw pictures, such as fruits or fish, on the bottoms of the paper cups.
You can devise games where you try to find the picture that matches a given theme from among the cups.
It’s fun to play solo, and it’s also an engaging game to compete in pairs.
Easy to make! Ping-pong Ball Bingo
Bingo is usually something you enjoy on paper, but how about trying a more game-like version? Ping-Pong Ball Bingo is a tabletop bingo game using an egg carton and ping-pong balls.
To make the base, simply prepare four empty egg cartons, open them up, and staple the four together—done! To play, place the egg cartons in the middle of the table and bounce ping-pong balls on the table so they land in the cartons.
If you line up three or more balls of the same color in a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal row, you win.
Split into teams by ball color and face off!
Text Color Card Game
This is a karuta-style card game where players focus on the reading of the characters and the colors on the cards to find the one that matches what is read aloud.
It tests your ability to decide whether the cue refers to the character or the color, and your judgment in locating it among the cards in front of you—so your thinking speed is key.
Clear phrasing by the reader is also important; be mindful to use concise expressions like “the character is red and the color is green.” The more cards with the same character in different colors are mixed in, the harder it becomes to judge the correct answer, so it’s recommended to gradually increase the number of cards as players get used to the game.
