To celebrate this year’s National Walking Month, residents at The Lawn, our Alton-based residential care home, have had a ‘Toe-tally’ great time walking and strolling around the care home’s beautiful grounds to reach their 1,000 steps goal.
“The residents thoroughly enjoy all our exercise classes so, for this year’s National Walking Month, we wanted to give the residents a fun, motivating, healthy and achievable challenge,” said Steve Swift, the Registered Manager at The Lawn. “Walking is an excellent, low-impact exercise for the residents to enjoy as it boosts cardiovascular health, strengthens bones – which in turn helps to prevent Osteoporosis, improves mood, and helps to maintain mobility and independence.
“All the residents decided to take part,” added Adesoji ‘Soji’ Odukomaiya, the Activities Coordinator at The Lawn. “I marked up and signposted a walking circuit around the care home’s grounds along the paths. It was a wide, nice, flat surface which made the challenge fully accessible as residents who either needed assistance from the care team, use walking sticks or Zimmer frames were able to join in the fun.
“We set a realistic goal of 1,000 steps to be accomplished over the day and decided upon this number of steps as its takes 1,000 steps to walk the foot map of the care home’s grounds. I used my smart watch to calculate the route to make sure it was the correct length and achievable for the residents.
“To ensure everyone could get involved and be included in the National Walking Month activity, I hosted a seat-walking exercise class for those residents who use wheelchairs, which they thoroughly enjoyed.”
The residents wasted no time in getting started and putting their best foot forward. “It was a beautiful, sunny day and the residents really loved being outside in the fresh air, catching the rays,” continued Steve.
“Whilst they enjoyed their walks and strolls, the residents spoke and reminisced about different hikes, rambles and treks they’d undertaken in the past and even stopped to admire the flowers, plants and visiting birds they noticed on the route around the grounds.”
“Walking is one of the best exercises for the over 70s, as it offers so many benefits for heart health, mobility, and longevity,” added Soji. “It is incredibly beneficial for older people as it’s a low-impact, weight-bearing exercise that strengthens bones and muscles, whilst at the same time, improves cardiovascular health.
“Walking can also significantly reduce the risk of chronic conditions like heart disease and Type 2 Diabetes and plays a key role in maintaining the residents’ independence and mobility.”
“However, the benefits of walking as an exercise for older people don’t stop there. It not only strengthens muscles and bones, can help to reduce blood pressure, improve
balance and coordination, assist in maintaining a healthy weight, improve energy levels and build confidence. So, as Hippocrates said, ‘Walking is man’s best medicine’, and seeing how much the residents got involved with and enjoyed the National Walking Month activity, it’s totally true,” concluded Steve.
Find out more about The Lawn care home by calling 01420 84162 or emailing [email protected].