[For Seniors] Recommended for older adults: enjoyable recreational activities
In this article, we introduce enjoyable recreation activities recommended for seniors.
You may want to freely enjoy using both body and mind.
Even so, many people end up thinking it’s impossible and give up.
Even for recreational activities that you might picture doing outdoors, with a bit of tweaking you can do them indoors.
We’ve also gathered activities that stimulate the brain and ones everyone can enjoy together.
Have fun while supporting functional recovery—use this as a reference!
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- [For Seniors] Fun Small-Group Recreation
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- [For Seniors] Easy to try. Fun, crowd-pleasing recreation
- [For Seniors] Recreational Activities Enjoyable in Large Groups
- Hand games that liven things up for seniors—also great brain training
[For Seniors] Recommended for the elderly. Enjoyable recreational activities (61–70)
Golf game
Here’s an introduction to a simple and fun paper-cup “golf” game.
Lay paper cups labeled with point values on their sides on the floor, and roll ping-pong balls to try to get them into the cups.
The winner is decided by how many ping-pong balls land in the cups.
Calculating the points for the ping-pong balls also provides a brain workout.
Since this golf game can be played while seated, it’s suitable for older adults who have difficulty standing.
Adjusting the force to roll the balls also helps with arm rehabilitation.
Some older adults may have enjoyed golf in the past, and this paper-cup golf can evoke those memories, too.
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.
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.
squeeze relay
This is a relay-style recreation using “Pop Pop Squeeze,” a toy where you press the raised bubbles with your fingers to pop them.
Once you’ve pressed all the bubbles on the provided squeeze toy, flip it over and pass it to the next person.
The team whose last player finishes popping the bubbles first wins! You can place the squeeze toys a short distance away and have participants move to them like an obstacle relay, or simply sit at a table and pass the toy to the next person.
Choose the method that seems safest and most enjoyable for your group.
Sticky
Have you heard of a game called “Sticky”? You place three colors of sticks with different thicknesses inside a ring, roll a special die, and pull out a stick of the color that comes up.
The person who eventually knocks it over loses, and the others are ranked based on the points from the colors of the sticks they have pulled up to that point.
As turns progress, the number of sticks decreases, gradually upsetting the balance and making the latter half thrilling.
Beyond being a fun game, choosing which stick to pull and carefully extracting it can also serve as brain training.
Give it a try!
step exercise
By stepping in time with the music, this routine makes it enjoyable to train the action of lifting your feet.
In addition to marching in place, adding steps in various directions helps you become more aware of hip and knee movements.
Another important point is to set a wide step platform in front of you; by incorporating movements that go up onto it, you can effectively strengthen your pushing-off power.
As you practice while thinking through more complex step patterns and let your body get used to them, this training can also lead to smoother walking.