Older adults have access to a new medium for information and directed activities to help them age well: podcasts.
Podcasts that help older adults age well are a growing trend. One example of this is the Not Old—Better podcast’s Fitness Fridays series. In September 2018, these weekly episodes focused on the National Institute on Aging’s Go4Life exercise program (https://go4life.nia.nih.gov/about-go4life/), which offers free resources and information to help older adults integrate this a new work-out routine into their daily lives. This brought greater attention to a major resource from the National Institute on Aging, and also provided older adults with a different avenue to obtain health information. Other Fitness Friday podcast topics include “Combat Sedentary Life,” “Leg Exercise & the Brain” and “Getting Better Sleep.”
And the Older Not Better’s Fitness Fridays is not alone. The podcast provider PlayerFM (https://player.fm/podcasts/Healthy-Aging) now has a large subsection of programming called “Healthy Aging Podcasts” where listeners can choose from podcasts such as “Live Long and Master Aging,” “Feisty Side of Fifty,” “Essentials of Healthy Living,” and the “Empowered Patient Podcast.”
There are a number of advantages to providing older adults information on healthy aging in podcast form. Podcasts can be easily accessed whenever convenient for the listener, including on the go; and as new podcasts become available, they can be automatically added to a podcast app. As more older adults adopt smartphones, they can have such podcasts available in their pockets or purse at all times, ready to share advice on aging well.
Source:
Vogelzang P. Listen: A Podcast Episode to Help Older Adults Exercise. NextAvenue. https://www.nextavenue.org/go4life-podcast-older-adults-exercise/. October 5, 2018. Accessed October 25, 2018.
