The Harrobia Integrated Vocational Training Center and the IMQ Igurco Bilbozar residence and day center have created a collaborative and intergenerational project with the aim of improving the functional capacity of the elderly and promoting healthy aging.
He Harrobia Integrated Vocational Training Center and the residence and day center IMQ Igurco Bilbozar have signed a collaboration agreement with the aim of improve the functional capacity of the elderly and encourage the healthy aging. To do this, they have launched a collaborative project, intergenerational and community in which the elderly, professionals from IMQ Igurco Bilbozar and students of the Higher Cycle of Physical Conditioning Technician of the Harrobia Integrated Vocational Training Center participate.
Thanks to this project, older people work on aspects such as muscle strength, balance and motor coordination, in order to maintain personal autonomy.
For two months, IMQ Igurco Bilbozar users have carried out two weekly sessions of multicomponent physical exercise, guided by the students of the Harrobia Integrated Vocational Training Center. In a second phase, they went to the facilities of the Harrobia building to carry out sessions to develop the muscle strength, balance and motor coordination. The last part of the project was carried out in the Biosaludable Park in Plaza Corazón de María, in Bilbao, where exercises were combined for the stimulation of cognitive abilities, spatial orientation and physical activity.
The project aims maintain and improve the functional capacity of the elderly, as an essential aspect for carrying out the basic and instrumental activities of daily life. In addition, it seeks to establish a Healthy habit and make older people aware of the importance of maintaining a physically active life.
Both the students and the users of the center report their satisfaction and willingness to continue participating in projects of similar themes and execution. This collaborative, intergenerational and community project demonstrates the importance of collaboration between educational and social entities in the promotion of a and improving the quality of life of the elderly.
About this project, Raul Sanchezprofessor and researcher of Vocational Training in Physical Activities and Sports at the Integrated Center for Vocational Training stands out “the chance that the students acquire important educational values such as the inclusion of physical activity with different groups of people, in this case with the elderly, and that our students are putting into practice social and communication skills as important as empathic listening. They have known the reality of a group of people who, thanks to their long life experience, have taught them great life lessons. Something that they might not otherwise have the chance to hear.”
In your opinion, these intergenerational experiences «They provide a very valuable point of view on theor what physical exercise can do to improve people’s quality of lifehighlighting the value of what they study and what they can contribute to society, seeing first-hand and through tests how the older people who have participated in this project have improved their quality of life, both physically and emotionally. ».
On the other hand, david burstphysiotherapist ofshows that “This initiative has beneficial effects on a functional and emotional level. As for the first, it involves an activity that works directly on physical capacity (strength, balance and coordination) and in which older people participate whose tendency, today, is a sedentary lifestyle and the reduction of physical activity to minimum. In this way, they break this dynamic and have the option of continuing with a trend of active lifebased on the exercises that have been carried out with the students of the Harrobia Integrated Vocational Training Center ».
With respect to emotional benefit, “It is a intergenerational activity in which age and experience are mixed with youth and energy. In addition, it is an activity that is carried out outside the center, breaking the daily routine, meeting new people and even interacting more among the elderly users of the day center themselves. It also supposes a self improvement elementwhere the participating people can approach personal self-realization, obtaining a sense of efficacy that moves them away from the feeling of dependency that they may present».