ONE of my sporting heroes Oksana Chusovitina was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame last weekend. The 41-year-old has competed at seven Olympic Games, variously representing the former Soviet Union, Germany and Uzbekistan.
Nor is the indomitable Chuso planning on hanging up her leotard any time soon: she is aiming for a record-breaking eighth Olympics in 2020.
While not all of us can somersault, soar through the air or perform the splits, a report published this month found that a new chair-based gymnastics exercise programme could have significant benefits for those living with dementia.
The research, conducted by Age UK on behalf of the British Gymnastics Foundation, showed "demonstrable benefits in the physical, emotional and cognitive aspects of older people". It indicated that those with mild to advanced forms of dementia appeared to reap the biggest rewards.
The Love to Move programme uses specially designed "bilaterally asymmetrical exercises" where the individual draws different patterns with the left-hand side of their body to the right-hand side.
Remember that childhood game of trying to tap your head and rub your stomach at the same time? It takes concentration but by practising you increase the ability for the right and left sides of your brain to process information independently of each other.
This improved capacity to perform bilateral movement sees the brain increase the number of connections it makes between its neurons which, in turn, results in increased cognitive ability.
For people with dementia, it has been shown to improve their ability to process everyday tasks such as feeding themselves, doing crafts and playing bingo, as well as socialising with friends and family.
The idea was first trialled in Japan and South Korea where the respective gymnastics federations jointly developed an exercise programme for people living with dementia. It is now state-funded in care homes throughout Japan as well as many across South Korea.
The British Gymnastics Foundation is keen to replicate that success here and ran a six-month pilot scheme in two care homes and a day centre in Cambridgeshire. To date 150 people have taken part with largely positive results.
Benefits highlighted include participants being taken off medication for hypertension, depression and sleeping difficulty. Although these findings are derived from a small sample, it makes for promising and uplifting reading.
The charity, a partner of British Gymnastics, now hopes to train more people to deliver the programme across the UK. A crowdfunding campaign has raised £11,940 of its £25,000 target so far.
Since the report's findings were published there have been almost 25,000 downloads of the Love to Move Exercise at Home guide, available free from the British Gymnastics website.
To date, more than 50 organisations and individuals including health trusts, dementia care units, local authorities, fitness professionals and physiotherapists have signalled an interest in delivering the programme or being involved in its future roll out.
These include carers in Edinburgh and Inverness as well as sports coaches and gymnastics clubs from across Scotland.
"We understand that building cognitive reserve as early as possible is beneficial for everyone," says British Gymnastics Foundation manager Patrick Bonner.
Time to pull up a pew and get exercising.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here