8 Fun Activities for Seniors with Mobility Issues
Do mobility issues have your aging parent down in the dumps? Losing the ability to get around independently can definitely strike a blow to confidence and wellbeing levels. Mobility issues don’t need to stifle a senior’s sense of purpose or enjoyment of life though. Don’t miss these 8 fun activity ideas for seniors with mobility issues:
Board games – bring on the board games and give your loved one a cognitive boost. Everything from cards to Scrabble to Monopoly, Dominos, and Checkers is a great place to start. Stock up on gently used board games from local re-stores like Goodwill and invite friends and family to join in on the fun.
Puzzles – putting puzzles together stimulates critical thinking and problem-solving skills as well as engages spatial awareness and concentration. Don’t reserve your fun to jigsaw puzzles either; games like Sudoku and Jenga have similar brain-boosting effects too!
Cooking – maybe standing at the stove to stir a big pot isn’t feasible, but mixing a green salad at a lower table is. Or helping scoop cookie dough onto a baking sheet. Cooking with your aging parent not only gives them something fun to do but helps them feel like a productive contributor in the home too.
Chair exercises – routine workouts are critical for all older adults, even people who are limited to canes, walkers or wheelchairs. Physical fitness helps prevent unwanted weight gain and lifestyle diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Guides to chair exercises and exercises for those recovering from injuries like fractured hips can be found online.
Art project – get the creative juices flowing and find an art project geared towards your loved one’s interests. Perhaps it is painting on a canvas, collaging, knitting, coloring, making jewelry, or even simply framing family photos – the act of creating something can is truly invigorating.
Planting – potting plants is easy and accessible when your loved one can sit in a chair at a table. Mixing soil, placing plants inside pots, and even snipping dead leaves or picking herbs are monthly activities that your loved one can do with minor assistance.
Reading – Nothing beats a good book. If your loved one is unable to hold a book or see words on a page, audiobooks are a great alternative (and can be borrowed for free at your local library).
Video chatting – for seniors with mobility limitations, social isolation is a very prevalent and dangerous reality. Technology makes it easy, however, to connect with friends and family near and far via free services like Skype, Google Hangouts or Facetime. You simply need a smartphone or webcam with speakers for your computer.
Smart Ways Seniors Can Practice Better Posture
For seniors, age-related muscle loss, joint stiffness, and bone weakness all contribute to the tendency to slouch, slump, or hunch over when sitting and standing. If you’re wondering if poor posture in old age is really that big of a deal, the answer is yes.
Poor posture habits can culminate in a host of symptoms including:
- Back and neck pain – wear and tear on the spine from prolonged bad posture coupled with tense and inflamed muscles compensating for the slouching and slumping add up to chronic pain.
- Reduced breathing capacity – hunching your back places added pressure on the thoracic cavity, leaving less room for your lungs to fill with air when you breathe.
- Interrupted digestion – intestinal motility is believed to be at its most efficient digesting food and moving gas when your abdomen is straighter and more upright.
Musculoskeletal damage – poor posture habits can cascade from strain in the back to pelvic imbalance, to even knee and leg issues over time.
So how can seniors make small improvements to their posture to benefit their health? Don’t miss this quick list:
Sit Less, Move More – prolonged sitting which has been linked with early death is also a classic bad posture culprit. Because of mobility issues or illness, seniors may feel prevented from staying active, however, it’s essential to spend less time sitting each day and more time moving, whether it’s walking, exercising, socializing, you name it.
Avoid Text Neck – the more modern posture habit of craning the neck past the shoulders and tilting the head down at a 15 to 45° angle to look at your tech devices places serious strain on your back muscles as they work overtime to hold your head up. Try to:
- Make phone calls or using talk-to-text instead of staring down at your phone and texting
- Use a laptop desk when working on the computer in bed or on the couch
- Hold your smartphone or tablet up in front of your face instead of at your waist
Practice Posture Exercises – your back and core muscles play an important role in properly supporting your spine and helping you maintain good posture. Reinforce these key muscle groups with routine exercise!
Check Your Biomechanics – your feet and the biomechanics of your gait can seriously impact your posture. Overpronating can lead to exaggerated inward knee rotation which stresses the hip and thusly compromises spinal integrity. Check your gait and sitting/standing form with your doctor.
Guest Blog: Should We Be Saving for Our Care in Old Age?
‘Carpe diem’ is a phrase that you’ve no doubt heard before. Your grandchildren might be announcing instead that ‘YOLO – you only live once’. The message is simple – live each day as though it’s your last, you never know what’s around the corner. According to those phrases, saving for old age might be a waste of money. We never know if we’ll make it to retirement, or how far into our retirement years we’ll get. Aren’t there more important things to be spending our money on than our old age care? Should we be saving at all?
What are your future prospects?
As much as you might convince yourself that you never know what lies ahead, the reality is that you can assume that you’ll live to see old age. Thanks to medical advances, more and more people are living full and healthy lives past an age that would previously have been considered to be ‘old’. After those healthy years, in many cases, come the not-so-healthy years when medical costs and care costs increase.
If you’re trying to convince yourself that saving isn’t worthwhile because you might not ever be ‘old’, bear in mind that by 2030 it is expected that 1 person out of 5 in the U.S. will be 65 or over.
Should you save for old age?
Your future is unknown. A majority of people pay a small fortune in costs for their care when they reach old age. The amount of support available could increase by the time you’re there, or it could dramatically decrease. It is far better to assume the latter and be prepared for every eventuality than to assume that you’ll have financial support and then discover later on that you don’t.
As you age, you may become less able to earn money and may be less capable of making your own decisions. If you don’t prepare in advance, then the eventual burden of your old age care will fall to your loved ones. By saving for old age, you are able to ensure that you get the best place to live, the best support and the best medical treatment, without impacting on the finances and livelihoods of younger family members.
Ecuva is an online health and wellness store where customers can purchase daily living aids, disability aids and items that can make old age easier, more comfortable and more independent.