The body and movement in the elderly: towards a Lifelong Learning Approach

It is widely shown that physical activity is effective in preventing motor and cognitive decline in the elderly. Aerobic exercise, like walking, and balance, strength, and joint mobility exer-cises are suggested by WHO but still proposed as individual activities and in a segmental way of execution. However, scientific evidence suggests that group activities are the best way to perform exercise in a context that promotes both health and sociality, the latter as crucial element in elderly wellbeing and for minimizing dropout. In addition, the control of walking intensity is essential to maximize the effects of the exercise without incurring into fatigue, so as the control of the global movement is crucial in order to recall higher cortical functions and, consequently, to foster motor learning in a lifelong perspective. The purpose of our study was to identify the best methods to proposing and project exercises for the elderly also by means a smartphone App. In this direction, we suggested the Talk test and the OMNI scale as a self-assessment tool to detect effort and fatigue, and a set of exercises where the method-ology helps elderly to self-build the movement starting from the perception of the body; the PACES scale was identified and adapted as a means to self-evaluate the satisfaction for the proposed activities.