My sister is the mother of a teenager, and also works at a nursing home. Oddly, that puts her in the perfect position to comment on some new uses of video game systems. Here’s what she has to say about them:
I have to express my views on the video game systems. In general, I don’t like many of them, but there is one that I really think is great: the Wii.
Nintendo has figured out how to please both sides – kids and parents. The kids want to play video games and the parents want kids to move around and not just sit there. With the Wii, you do both. They even have special work-out programs so you don’t have to go to the gym. Pretty cool, huh?
But, let me tell you an application for the Wii that you may not have thought about. Today, you will find one of these video game systems in nursing homes and long term care facilities everywhere. It’s not exactly what you would consider therapeutics equipment, but think about it.
In these facilities there are people who are confined to wheel chairs, and who have extreme loss of mobility and various other physical limitations. Like my grandfather, these people were used to going out once a week to their bowling leagues, golf courses, or maybe playing tennis. Their leisure activities is another one of their freedoms that old age has taken away from them.
Enter the Wii. With this machine, these folks are now able to “play” again.
And it’s not just a time passer. In my area, we have a yearly Wii Olympics. This is where contestants from various nursing homes and long term care facilities get together at a host facility and compete. They receive certificates of participation and also ribbons for placement. So, they get to hang out with their friends, have some friendly competition and there is even some physical therapy stuck in there.
So next time you go and visit Grandma in the nursing home, don’t be surprised if she is sitting in her chair next locked into a heated battle to the death with one of the other residents–or maybe even with her teenaged great-grandson or great granddaughter.
With arms flying everywhere, heart rates up, and muscles tensed, they aren’t just having fun together and building an important family bond–kids and elders alike are getting a lot of good healthy exercise.
