MATCH-UP Services: Strong for Life

The newest of our visiting programs is Strong for Life. This program trains volunteers to assist frail and disabled elders in their own homes with an exercise program designed to increase strength and balance and improve overall health. Many seniors look forward to the exercise time as an important part of their weekly friendly visits.

Volunteers spend part of their weekly friendly visit helping their match learn and perform their exercises guided by a 30-minute video. Participants use elastic bands to provide resistance for strengthening muscles that are important in every day movements such as getting out of a chair and walking. Each exercise can be made more or less difficult, and the instructions suit differing levels of strength and functionality. Participants also exercise twice a week on their own.

The results have been impressive. Most of the participants are progressing well through the various levels of resistance training. Some who became ill or had surgery attributed their faster-than-expected recovery to their increased strength and vitality as a result of this program. Many are more talkative and have more confidence. Even some of the volunteer trainers exercising alongside the elders have experienced fitness gains of their own. One participants reports, "I had a stroke and I feared I would never stand again or walk. This program has helped me tremendously." Another says, "Before I started [Strong for Life], I was homebound. I didn't get out, I didn't get dressed, I didn't do anything. Since I'm in the program, I'm ready to get dressed and go out."

Strong for Life was developed in the early 1990s by physical therapists at Boston University's Roybal Center for Enhancement of Late-Life Functions. When the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation became concerned with the problems of inactivity, immobility, and isolation which often beset the very old, they turned to their national volunteer organization, Faith in Action, to conduct a pilot study of the Strong for Life program utilizing volunteers as trainers. MATCH-UP was one of ten sites nationwide chosen for the effort.

During FY04, MATCH-UP brought Strong for Life every week to ten elderly women and one man resulting in 858 hours of well-designed exercise for frail and infirm seniors who would otherwise not receive it.

If you are interested in the Strong for Life exercise program, please call us at 617-482-1510.

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