Ping pong for seniors: 'I feel like I'm 50'
Credit to Author: Denise Ryan| Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2019 16:41:54 +0000
After suffering a stroke last October and moving into a long-term care home, Jasmine Murtadza, 95, was not adapting well. She didn’t feel like herself anymore.
“She felt helpless,” said her daughter, Nur Intan.
After all, the former radio and television producer had always been independent. In her youth, she had been a skilled athlete, and a national doubles badminton champion in Malaysia.
But the stroke left her afraid for her future, said Intan. Murtadza didn’t want to socialize, or even leave her room.
Then she heard about the ping pong.
Maybe it was the raucous laughter or the cheers of other residents or the sound of the ball popping off the paddles, but she became curious. Then she got involved.
Now, Murtadza is one of the keenest players in the weekly tournaments at Burnaby’s Normanna Long Term Care Home. The ping pong games have become “a fountain of youth” for the residents, said Leslie Torreson, manager of recreation.
Torreson picked up the ping pong table in February on a lark when she spotted it at Walmart.
“There was skepticism,” said Torreson, “but the residents right away came alive.”
She had to adapt the table, lower it to wheelchair height and move the net from the middle to the side, but the rest is sports history.
Marija Uzelac plays ping pong at a long-term care facility in Burnaby.
Ping pong, as it turns out, is an ideal sport for someone who has had a stroke (it only requires one hand), and because it is played on a table it requires no footwork that might cause balance issues. And it’s just good fun.
Mary Hatch, 88, a former Ballet B.C. dancer who also did stints in Las Vegas with Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin, dresses up for the weekly ping pong tournaments with flowers in her hair and rings on every finger. “I feel like I’m 50,” she said after a vigorous round of volleys.
Marija Uzelac, a player with a wicked serve, was so excited about Thursday’s tournament she phoned her daughter the night before to insist that she come.
“She won the last (tournament), and this was a rematch,” said her daughter, Anne Uzelac. “She absolutely loves it.”
Uzelac’s team partner, Carlos DeLeon, grew up playing baseball and volleyball — sports that pose a bit more of a challenge at this point. But ping pong does the trick.
“Playing ball always makes me happy,” he said after winning a round with Uzelac at his side.
“We can get up to 40 residents playing in a day,” said Torreson.
The activity has been such a hit that in the afternoons, staff get in on the action and team up to play, with residents cheering them on.
“With all the residents, especially Jasmine, the difference has been, I would say, night and day. She’s talking, she’s smiling, she joins all the other programs. It’s like a light went on.”
Her daughter couldn’t agree more. “She was always very sporty. Doubles badminton, golf, martial arts. Ping Pong has given her back her self esteem.”