The people living at Brook House Care Home in Cambridge enjoy a large variety of different activities. The team at the home are always trying to come up with new ideas and games for them to play, in order to keep each day varied and interesting.
Recently, Jade, the Lifestyle Coordinator at the home, thought outside the box and came up with a new and exciting exercise regime, using large playing cards numbered from one to ten.
Jade put together a list of different fitness activities, labelling them all from one to ten. Then, she encouraged each participant to draw one of the large playing cards and partake in the activity with the same number.
This led to some fun and different activities, with number three encouraging people to punch their arms in the air three times, and number nine insisting that people put their hands on their shoulders and straighten them out and back nine times. The residents found this very amusing, and all crossed their fingers that they would get a lower numbered card as they required that you repeat activities less times.
This new way of exercising proved to be a great success, with everyone agreeing that it didn’t feel like work because they were laughing so much. Once they were done, everyone was rewarded with a wonderful lemon dessert that the chef had prepared, and they sat and ate while they discussed their enjoyment.
Jade asked everybody if they would like this activity to be put on their regular schedule and was met with a resounding yes, so everyone at Brook House can look forward to more playing card exercises in the future.