[For Older Adults] Games to Enhance Oral Function: Enjoyable and Easy to Do
Oral functions play an important role in daily life, such as eating and speaking.
We all want to keep enjoying meals and conversations as we get older.
In this article, we’ll introduce fun and easy activities that help improve oral function.
For example, are you familiar with vowel articulation practice like “a-i-u-e-o”?
It’s a simple and enjoyable articulation exercise, and in fact, it not only enhances oral function but also helps strengthen your abdominal muscles.
We also introduce exercises that are essential for health management, so please try to find some that you feel you can do!
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[For Older Adults] Games to Improve Oral Function: Enjoyable Activities (41–50)
Gokkun training
Here is a training exercise to strengthen the digastric muscles at the base of the jaw.
Also nicknamed the “gulping muscles,” training the digastric muscles lifts the Adam’s apple.
When the Adam’s apple rises, it helps prevent aspiration.
Take a sip of water and, as you swallow, engage your digastric muscles.
Try swallowing while touching your digastric muscles and your Adam’s apple with your hands to stay aware of them.
Repeat several times; the key is to swallow firmly enough that you feel fatigue under your chin.
PET bottle blowing
The function of recognizing food and then moving it through the mouth and down into the stomach is called eating and swallowing function.
This time, we’ll introduce a training method that can help improve this function.
All you need is a plastic bottle.
It’s called the plastic bottle blowing exercise: you exhale through a straw into a plastic bottle filled with water to make bubbles.
This technique is well known, but we’ll add a bit of resistance.
Make a hole near the top of the bottle and insert the straw through it.
By adjusting how tightly you screw on the cap, you can change the resistance when you bubble.
This lets you not only apply a constant force but also modulate the force.
It’s a worthwhile challenge for older adults, too.
In conclusion
This time, we introduced exercises and activities related to oral functions.
They included not only tongue and throat exercises, but also whole-body movements.
Did you find any that seem doable? It’s great to start with something fun, like rhythmic exercises or game-like activities! You’ll feel the benefits as you keep it up!