Specialty Care Mississauga Road residents Joseph P and Kay M are seen here using the home’s two recumbent cycles.

LTC home-LHIN collaboration helps increase residents' fitness
Specialty Care Mississauga Road residents feeling the benefits of fitness room
Monday, October 1, 2012 -- Deron Hamel
Collaboration between Specialty Care Mississauga Road and the Mississauga Halton Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) has resulted in the Streetsville long-term care home getting a second NuStep recumbent cycle, which is helping keep residents in shape, creating healthy competition and drawing more people to the fitness room.

The recumbent cycle was purchased with the help of funding from the LHIN. Restorative-care co-ordinator Monica Catto says the first cycle has long been popular with residents, so when the second bike was received the exercise became even more popular.

Having a second recumbent cycle is not only decreasing wait times in the exercise room, it’s increasing socialization and fun for residents, the restorative-care co-ordinator tells the Morning Report.

“Healthy competitions have developed with the residents, comparing the length their opponents can peddle, the resistance they can tolerate and the speed at which they can peddle,” says Catto.

The results being garnered for residents speak for themselves. For example, resident Joseph P says he feels “alive when (I am) on the bike.”

Catto says the second cycle is allowing more residents to feel increased independence, too. Many residents, she notes, are no longer ambulatory, so having the ability to use the recumbent cycles is bolstering self-confidence.

The recumbent cycles are not the only pieces of equipment in the fitness room residents are utilizing. Catto says people are also using free weights and practising their climbing skills on stairs.

Catto says the camaraderie is stronger than ever in the fitness room.

“Like anyone else, our residents are motivated by a buddy system: ‘I’ll go if you’re going’ is often heard among residents when they’re reminded about their class,” she says.

“The playing field is levelled in our fitness room; no one is worse or better off, there is no judgment, and there is a genuine respect for one another’s abilities and appreciation for the wellness that they still manage to enjoy in their senior years.”

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