Yoga Can Benefit Older Adults, Including Those With Memory Loss

Oct. 4, 2022 — Paige E, a 76-year-old retired psychotherapist, had all the time loved yoga, which she discovered enjoyable, invigorating, and spiritually significant. As she grew older and confronted rising bodily challenges, she started taking yoga courses for seniors.

When the COVID-19 lockdown started, Paige was involved that she may want to surrender yoga courses. She knew she might follow on her personal however felt she wanted the construction of a category and the help of an teacher. So she determined to take on-line courses with Howard Katz, a Teaneck, NJ-based yoga teacher, with whom she had taken in-person courses previously.

At first, she was skeptical whether or not the net format could be helpful. 

“I’m not very tech-savvy — in fact, I’m a tech dinosaur — and I worried that I wouldn’t be able to manage the technology or relate to a virtual format,” she says. 

She was additionally involved as a result of she has some mind challenges and wasn’t positive how they might impression her capability to take part in on-line studying.

“I don’t have classic dementia or Alzheimer’s, but I do have memory and organizational issues that are related to other health problems,” she says.

Fortunately, she was in a position to grasp the expertise and profit from the courses.

Feasible and Safe

 Online yoga grew to become a part of the “new normal” through the COVID-19 pandemic, and its use has remained since then. And though some folks want in-person settings, many proceed to want the comfort, affordability, and different advantages of on-line yoga. 

This can be true  for courses focusing on seniors, together with these with cognitive impairments. A current examine discovered {that a} remotely supplied home-based chair yoga intervention was useful for older adults with dementia. 

“The telehealth-based chair yoga intervention was found to be convenient to both participants and their caregivers in keeping them physically active, as it was easily accessible from home and did not require transportation or getting dressed, which reduced caregiver burden and stress,” says senior researcher JuYoung Park, PhD, a professor in the Phyllis and Harvey Sandler School of Social Work at Florida Atlantic University’s College of Social Work and Criminal Justice. 

Seniors with dementia “can focus on the chair yoga intervention more effectively in a comfortable home environment rather than in a community center, with its associated distractions,” she explains.

Notably, there have been no accidents or different antagonistic occasions through the intervention, “indicating that online chair yoga with caregiver support is safe.”

Park stresses that some folks may face technological challenges in accessing on-line periods, so tech help needs to be supplied if essential. And “since the instructor cannot engage in direct action with the participant, it’s recommended that a caregiver attend sessions with the person with dementia, monitor the participant for safety, and assist in following the poses correctly.”

What Is Yoga for Seniors?

Katz teaches older adults in senior facilities and likewise provides on-line and in-person group and personal courses to seniors via his personal yoga studio. 

“Senior yoga is regular yoga made accessible for older adults who might experience age-related physical challenges,” says Katz.

“With seniors, I usually start with gentle warm-ups, then guide them through basic standing forward bends, gentle back bends, and warrior poses,” says Katz.

Props reminiscent of blocks, straps, and chairs are supplied, and postures are modified to accommodate the bodily challenges of seniors. 

“Some seniors can’t sit on the floor because they have difficulty getting up, so I modify the postures so that they can sit on a chair. Some have difficulty with balance, so they hold onto the chair or wall,” Katz notes. In truth, half the postures in his Yoga for Seniors courses are seated, whereas the opposite half are standing. 

Katz’s yoga courses emphasize respiration strategies. In explicit, he likes to show alternate nostril respiration (Nadi Shodhana), ocean-sounding breath (Ujjayi), and bee-breath (Brahmerie) that are calming for folks with nervousness and stress and produce other advantages as nicely — like reducing blood stress, for instance. 

All of Katz’s courses embody meditation, which, he says, can convey calm, peace, and non secular opening to folks of all ages and has additionally been proven to be useful in bettering cognition and high quality of life in seniors.

“I regard yoga postures and breathing as preparation for the most important component of yoga, which is meditation,” he explains.

Addressing the Special Needs of Seniors With Cognitive Challenges

Katz provides non-public in-person and on-line courses to folks with cognitive impairments.   

“Classes are highly individualized, and all the components are modified, depending on the student’s cognitive level and needs,” he says. 

For instance, he simplifies the respiration strategies or postures and explains every thing extra slowly, repeating directions and explanations as typically as essential.

Some people with delicate cognitive impairment can take courses alone. But these with extra extreme impairments or with dementia profit from having a caregiver current for security and to strengthen the yoga lesson, based on Katz. 

“It also creates a shared bond and activity for the caregiver and the student to do yoga together,” he says. 

Paige’s cognitive impairments are mild. She lives independently, does not require a caregiver, and successfully takes online classes with Katz, who “is patient and supportive when I don’t remember some things,” she says. “He explains things well, so I understand what each posture is designed to accomplish, and he creates a safe atmosphere, so I never feel rushed or judged.”

Paige feels that yoga has helped her bodily well being, cognition, and temper. 

“Yoga is a gift in my life, and I encourage other seniors to try it,” she says.