New Year, new challenges
For many, a new year means new resolutions, and people commit to exercising more, losing weight, and improving their diet. For others, a new year’s resolution means pushing themselves to the extreme by signing up for a new sports challenge.
For clients, they may not be planning a marathon or backpacking overseas, but it’s important to talk about adopting new habits that will boost health and happiness.
This year, motivate clients to live a more active, healthy, and enriched life.
Incidental activity helps Healthy Ageing
We are all aware regular exercise is good for our health, but many older adults believe structured exercise such as hitting the gym or fitness classes is out and not within their ability. Thankfully, it turns out even small daily adjustments can have a surprisingly big impact on our health.
‘Incidental activities’ are those activities that occur as part of everyday tasks and break up long periods of sedentary time. It is an unstructured or unplanned physical activity that builds up in small amounts over the course of the day. There are opportunities for incidental exercise every day and for everyone, regardless of age or fitness level.
Introducing incidental activity to clients and helping them understand how to incorporate it into their day is an important role for providers and support staff. Incidental activity can assist clients to meet the recommended daily exercise guidelines and prevent developing some of the chronic health conditions associated with an inactive lifestyle. Understanding that there are additional benefits, not just that of completing the task but it also adds to the person’s daily ‘bank of activity’ like depositing money into a savings account.
When clients are intentionally adding more incidental activities to their day, it will boost them into leading a more active lifestyle, maintaining social connections, improving mental health and cognitive function all of which will help maintain independence at home.
To download our ‘Sit less, move more‘, info sheet, click on the image to the left. Or for our summer ‘activities to try‘ two-page A4 PDF, click the image below.
More tips to share with your clients
For more information on any of the above, have a look at our Popular Resources for Home Care Providers page.
Find the resources you need on KeepAble
Check out our article on Preparing for your next Wellness and Reablement report here to learn what, as a CHSP provider you should consider in preparation for your yearly Wellness and Reablement Report.
