Activity Friends – Nottingham

Activity Friends is a volunteer programme for the over 50’s designed to help people achieve a healthier lifestyle through increasing physical activity and befriending to alleviate social isolation. Volunteers are trained as ‘Activity Friends’ who then reach out to their peers in their local community. Support and encouragement is given on a one-to-one or a…

Cotswolds – Mentors to support active living

‘Enjoy Later Life’ is a peer mentor training programme that enables volunteers to work with older people to support independent living. The report will highlight the successes of the training, points for consideration in the subsequent training programmes and opportunities for further development. In addition, this report will highlight the health benefits for the Cotswold…

CHAMPS – Senior Peer Mentoring for active lifestyles

CHAMPS (Community Healthy Activities Model Program For Seniors) is a public health model program to promote increased lifetime physical activity levels of seniors. Substantial scientific evidence supports increased physical activity as a promising approach to improve the health and well-being of seniors. Accordingly, CHAMPS promotes and facilitates physically active lifestyles for seniors. It encourages participants…

Research – Otago and reduced mortality – 2010

Does the ‘Otago exercise programme’ reduce mortality and falls in older adults?: a systematic review and meta-analysis. This paper published in Age and Ageing in 2010 by Thomas et al. shows that the Otago Exercise Programme significantly reduces the risk of death and falling in older community-dwelling adults. They reviewed 7 trials with over 1500…

Don’t mention the F Word!

Research from Help the Aged (now AgeUK) and the University’s of Southampton & Manchester, examines the attitudes and feelings of older people towards falls prevention services and resources. It explores different approaches and ways of communicating falls prevention messages to older people, as well as ways of encouraging older people to take up falls prevention…

EfS – Original RCT of the STARTER exercises used in the EfS training on function and quality of life

Published in 2007, the results of a randomised controlled trial comparing with relaxation on physical function and quality of life in people who had been discharged from rehabilitation. The paper describes the background need for an effective group programme for those leaving the rehabilitation setting. The programme, delivered over 12 weeks, 3 times a week,…