Tuesday, November 7, 2017
A GROUP of men and women dedicated to improving their strength and balance have been undertaking the Steady as You Go (SAYGo) programme at the Anglican Church Hall.
Photo Ross McCullough OB3098-1
Ross McCullough
EVERY Tuesday for the past three weeks in the Anglican Church Hall, there has been an exercise regime of a different kind.
It is the venue for a new programme that offers men and women aged 65-plus strength and balance classes to help with preventing falls.
Known as the Steady as You Go (SAYGo) Falls Prevention Programme, the gentle exercises are based on a programme which has been proven to reduce falls by Professor John Campbell and Dr Clare Robertson from the University of Otago, that was developed for Age Concern.
More than 30 of the SAYGo classes have since been set up, including one in Whakatane, with the classes now available every Tuesday from 2-3pm in Opotiki.
SAYGo Falls Prevention co-ordinator Angelika Gillen views the programme as an important community service.
“This is a special programme people can use to improve their balance and have more confidence in it,” she told Opotiki News.
Mrs Gillen said when people became older they tended to lose their balance. The SAYGo programme comprises exercises designed to improve balance, leg strength, general fitness and well-being.
Since starting up in Opotiki she says a consistent group has been enjoying the programme’s many benefits and applications.
Not only does it bring people together in a similar vein – needing the assistance – but it helps them forge relationships while becoming more active and healthy.
And, Mrs Gillen said, as people got older, they tended to lose automatic sense of the left and right side of the brain.
But co-ordination exercises, which are part of the strength and balancing classes, help to train the left and right side of the brain.
Mrs Gillen, who monitors the programme, undertakes initial testing of participants’ balance and leg strength, and after 10 weeks re-tests them to see what improvements have been made in that time.
She said 95 percent or more improve in at least one of the tests.