DVD promotes exercise for elderly in care

OLDER people who have limited mobility are being encouraged and shown how to exercise even from a chair through a new DVD.

Filmed at St Patrick’s Hospital in Waterford, the DVD shows safe and effective ways to deliver chair-based activity sessions for residents in long-stay facilities for older adults.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) — in co-operation with the Activity in Care Training (ACT) team in the Department of Health, Sport and Exercise Science at Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) — have produced the innovative DVD.

The production features some of the hospital residents and provides a practical demonstration of chair-based physical activity session for participants of varying needs and abilities.

The resource will help ACT trainees learn appropriate activities, leadership skills and safety issues. Staff at St Patrick’s Hospital have been delivering physical activity sessions to their residents since the beginning of the ACT project. Both staff and residents have been key to developing the training resource.

Speaking at the launch on behalf of the Health Service Executive, Meabh McGuinness (Health Promotion Officer) said the ACT programme provides staff in long-stay care facilities for older adults with a qualification in physical activity leadership.

Welcoming the launch of the DVD, Mary Cowman, the Project Manager for the ACT Programme, said the DVD would prove to be a valuable training tool for training and best practice.