The Power of Play

July 15, 2023 8:06 AM

Want to see a whole bunch of elders and people with movement disabilities having a great time? Good! Who says that PT and movement have to be boring? Goofing off is healing for the body and mind. I wanna know which of these games you are excited to play. Make sure to keep scrolling through the profile, because there’s a lot of fun and joy waiting for you.
posted by Bottlecap (9 comments total)

That's great. My Mom's care home had some activities like passing a ball around or chair dancing but I am sure any additions would have been welcome.
posted by agatha_magatha at 8:32 AM on July 15, 2023

This is fantastic, thanks.
posted by unknowncommand at 8:49 AM on July 15, 2023

When I was five I used to join in the wheelchair balloon volleyball games at my Grandmother's nursing home. Between that and the Jell-o, I thought nursing homes were a pretty good deal.

My other Grandmother had two hips and two knees replaced. When she was in the nursing home, she played Wii bowling, and was quite skilled.

Also, gym was probably my all time favorite class in school, so all of these games look exciting to me. The creativity is impressive.
posted by Hume at 8:57 AM on July 15, 2023 [4 favorites]

I love this guy! I've been following him on TikTok. I want to play some of these games too :-)
posted by EllaEm at 9:39 AM on July 15, 2023

I've been following this account for months: watching the players be so intent on completing the tasks -- "winning" -- is great.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:10 AM on July 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Wow - this is excellent. A lot of places that I toured earlier this year for my mom had new ping pong tables because the residents were demanding them, and most all of them did chair volleyball. One place seemed VERY SERIOUS about the chair volleyball team and was going to an away game the day I visited. But not everybody wants ping pong or volleyball. Cardboard skeeball and Goldberg devices for the win!
posted by queensissy at 10:16 AM on July 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

Oh, man, the shit-talking I'm imagining is going on in that very first one!
posted by praemunire at 11:14 AM on July 15, 2023 [7 favorites]

gym was probably my all time favorite class in school

I'm sure there's some privilege showing, but right here. People were much more themselves in gym class (regardless of ability) than in most other HS settings I remember. The moving body produces passion.

As Matt Christman says, "It's not thought>action, NO, it's action>being"

This is great. Maybe my only snipe is that some video editing to make these scenes more absurdly dramatic and fit within the video production style of the period would be pretty sweet.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 9:08 PM on July 15, 2023

I think it's interesting that he's using household objects like a roll of paper towels. I'm sure it's cheaper, but also they're familiar in a way that I bet makes it easier to do. Like the people rolling batteries across the table -- we all know how much a battery weighs and what it would feel like to roll it, but if there were some dedicated $150 TherapyBattryRolr his clients would have to get used to it before diving into the game.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:17 PM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]