Addington Place residents keep moving

MT. PLEASANT — Residents at Addington Place of Mt. Pleasant keep active with unique spins on exercise thanks to the initiative of staff like Lifestyle Enrichment Coordinator Kristy Hartz.

Every morning, Addington Place residents gather in the common areas at 9:30 for an hour worth of movement and socialization. Recently, Physical Therapy Assistant Billy Jones led the crew through multiple rounds of Exercise Bingo to get their bodies moving.

“I work for Empower Me Wellness, and it's a program that we have,” Jones explained.

BINGO Exercise provides residents a fun opportunity to engage with their peers, move their bodies, and win prizes as they achieve BINGOs.

The game consists of each resident marking off exercises on their BINGO cards as Jones calls them out and demonstrates them.

To best meet residents where they are, the exercises are designed to be completed primarily from a seated position.

The Bingo exercises include marching in place, heel and toe taps, kicks, angle circles, hamstring pulls, kick outs, sit to stand, trunk rotations, seated reaching, cross body reaching, arm curls, wrist flexion and extensions, front and lateral raises, fist and flares, shoulder shrugs, overhead press, punches, arm circles, rows, arm, and neck stretches.

According to Hartz, recently, she has attempted to add more games like Exercise Bingo into the residents' scheduled movement time.

“They seem to enjoy those a lot,” she said.

Other games she has incorporated include two games with balloons.

“Noodle Ball is where they have pool noodles and then we have a balloon and they kind of hit it back and forth, try and keep it off the ground as long as possible,” Hartz explained. “It’s quite entertaining.”

Along those same lines, Hartz says they have played a game where residents pass a balloon using paddles.

“It really helped with balance, concentration, and teamwork,” she said. “It was actually a lot of fun!”

According to Hartz, the residents took that game very seriously.

“I thought it would be a little more wild, but they were very serious about it,” she said.

Hartz finds inspiration for other movement activities from Addington Place’s monthly themes.

With the month of June celebrating all things Hawaiian, Hartz decided to try flamingo ring toss with the residents.

“That drew a big crowd,” Hartz said. “We threw leis and rings around these inflatable flamingo’s necks.”

While not every movement hour has a crazy theme or an interesting game attached, Hartz said the main goal is to simply get the residents moving.

“We want to get them moving as much as possible,” she said. “I mean, it's great for their health, body, mind, everything. It makes me in a better mood.”

Whether it is Exercise Bingo, Noodle Ball, or simple exercises to movement, “They enjoy it, moving, dancing, everything,” Hartz said.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com