He who dances sows his wounds! It sounds cliché, but the benefits of dancing for seniors can be many and can make a difference in your life!
The senior need specific care. Diet, physical activity, and socialization are essential for the senior’s daily life. It is necessary to adapt to the new phases and face the new stage head on.
In this text we will talk specifically about the benefits of dancing for seniors: how dance can help motor coordination, help prevent falls, and, of course, bring more joy to life.
What are the benefits of dancing for the senior?
Limitation of the body and mind is something common when we reach old age. The truth is that it takes attention in this phase and some special care so that the senior can live a healthy life.
Research shows that there is a great contribution to the physical and mental health of the senior when they perform physical activities in their daily lives. In addition, it is possible to observe a gain in strength, rhythm, agility, and balance.
For this, one of the options is dance, which works both as a physical activity and as a social interaction. Want to know more? Check out the benefits of dance for seniors:
Exercising the mind:
The senior already have a predisposition to feel alone and abandoned. This is because the rush of daily life often means that relatives are not so close.
For this reason, activities that help mental health are essential, and dance is one of them.
Moving the body is not only a fun activity. It is a way to keep the mind active, force one to memorize the sequence of steps, and activate concentration.
In addition, dancing still helps the senior person to always have those memories and sensations experienced throughout life.
Promote social interaction:
Still about the feeling of being alone, dance helps to promote social interaction, making the senior start to socialize with other people and build new friendships.
With group classes and interaction with other people of the same age, dance also helps in the adaptation to aging.
Helping to fight depression:
Diseases such as depression, anxiety, and stress can be combated or alleviated through dance. The senior can be more vulnerable to these conditions, and keeping the mind and body active can help, a lot, in fighting mental illnesses.
Dancing helps the body to produce endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine, which are hormones responsible for maintaining mood and pleasure. With this, dancing generates a state of happiness and combats negative symptoms.
It helps with self-esteem:
Dance is invigorating and because it is a pleasurable activity it can help with the rescue of self-esteem.
In addition, dance can also help develop movement, body awareness, develop happiness and joy from dancing, promote self-knowledge, and social contact.
Understand the importance of self-esteem in the senior.
It works the whole body:
Among the benefits of dance for seniors, we could not fail to talk about the physical part. It is a fact that many health problems of the senior are related to a sedentary lifestyle. Thus, it is important to point out that dance has an important role, putting the body in movement in a pleasant and unique way.
The dance ends up helping the physical exercise, the mind, the harmony, and the reasoning.
Besides this, the activation of motor skills is one of the main benefits of dance. But we will talk about this in the special topic below!
Motor coordination and balance:
One of the points of greatest attention for the senior is balance and motor coordination. An senior person who has these two factors altered can suffer falls and end up injuring himself in a more serious way.
The improvement in body balance, therefore, ends up becoming one of the priorities at this age, and dance can help. The development of motor skills can ensure easier movement, more autonomy, and more safety to prevent falls.
What are the risk factors for falls in the senior?
Older age is the main risk factor for falls in the senior, but other factors related to the environment can also aggravate the possibility of falls. Here’s what they are:
Low physical fitness caused by aging;
– Change in blood pressure or cardiac arrhythmia, which can cause fainting;
– Weakness of the muscles and lower limbs;
– Diseases such as osteopenia and osteoporosis;
– Loss of balance;
– Depression or other diseases of the mind;
– Foot deformity, such as bunions and large toenails;
– History of falls throughout life;
– Inadequate lighting in the environment;
– Furniture layout at home and poorly planned environments for the elderly’s locomotion.
There are also other factors to be taken into account, and you can find more information in our content on falls in the senior.
It is worth pointing out that for the elderly, falling is more complicated than for young people. An senior person has more fragile bones and more sensitive skin. A fall can mean serious and even open fractures.
How to help with the health of the senior?
You have seen the many benefits of dancing for the senior. But to prevent falls, every care is needed, and some attitudes can help, such as
– Wear non-slip shoes and keep the laces tied;
– Practicing physical exercises and dancing;
– Pay attention to the correct use of medication;
– Include regular sunbathing in the routine;
– Adequate diet with professional guidance;
– Remove carpets lying around the house;
– Adequate food storage in cupboards, keeping them as low as possible so that the elderly person does not have to climb up to reach them;
– Include non-slip matting in the bathroom;
– Place supports in the bathroom or on chairs so that the elderly person has a place to lean when taking a bath;
– Keep eye exams up to date.
We realize that dancing can be an excellent strategy to bring well-being to the senior, but we cannot forget that other factors are also important.
Always paying attention to the diet, mental well-being, and complaints of the senior are essential for you who want to see him or her better every day!
Source: https://vivatecs.com/blog/posts/beneficios-da-danca-para-idosos/
