[For Seniors] Lively Wordplay Game: Fun Recreation for Elderly Care

Shiritori Anywhere

Shiritori Anywhere

Shiritori, a word game many of us have played since childhood, is also a recommended recreation for people with dementia.

One of its strengths is how easy it is—no materials or preparation required.

It’s handy for filling small pockets of time, like on the bus when going out to the suburbs.

Another plus is that you can adjust the difficulty to match the person’s cognitive level.

You can customize freely with rules like “three-letter words only” or “food items only.” You could also set a goal, such as “finish after connecting 50 words.”

Restricted Shiritori

Snow Man [10th Single Commemorative Project] Huge excitement with a restricted shiritori game!!

Shiritori is a simple word game you can enjoy anytime, anywhere—a classic recreational game for all ages.

But playing plain shiritori can get dull, and people often lose interest halfway through.

How about trying a variant with a small twist—shiritori with restrictions? It’s still shiritori, but adding light rules like “only three-letter words” or “food items only” makes it much more thought-provoking and exciting.

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utatane

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Shiritori Cards

[Restriction] We can’t end the Extreme Shiritori Party until the entire deck is gone.

We’ll play a shiritori game using cards with various words written on them, connecting words one after another.

It’s easier to read the words in hiragana, but writing them in kanji also adds the element of recalling their readings.

Start with a simple shiritori to get going, and once everyone gets used to it, it’s recommended to add conditions to the words.

By adding variations—such as searching for words with a specified number of characters—the game becomes more complex and really trains thinking skills.

If you proceed as a team and cooperate, you can also incorporate a communication element, which is highly recommended.

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kappamaki

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Hard-to-pull nails, nails that are difficult to remove, nails pulled out with a nail puller

“A nail that’s hard to pull out, a nail that’s difficult to draw out, a nail pulled with a nail puller”—this tongue-twister also brings to mind scenes of carpenters or families doing DIY at home.

You can really picture someone struggling to pull out a stubborn nail.

Because of that, it repeats the same or similar words quite a lot.

It might be easier to say if you consciously break it into words like: hard-to-pull, nail; hard-to-draw-out, nail.

It’s a tongue-twister that may even help older adults recall their own DIY experiences.

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Nakajima Junko

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red paper roll, blue paper roll, yellow paper roll

Tongue twisters often consist of strings of hard-to-pronounce words.

“Aka-makigami ao-makigami ki-makigami” (red scroll paper, blue scroll paper, yellow scroll paper) is also a sequence of tricky words.

By the way, makigami refers to paper made by joining together sheets of hansetsu paper (a tall, narrow paper) side by side to make a long roll.

It’s sold in scroll form.

This tongue twister lines up red, blue, and yellow scroll paper.

It looks easy at first glance, but when you try to say it repeatedly, it becomes hard to pronounce.

As a tip, if you pause slightly between the color names—like red or blue—and the word “makigami,” it should be a bit easier to say.

Try it together with older adults.

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Nakajima Junko

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