1
Cane History
Thai people of old age have been using a cane to help in standing and walking for several decades. It is also an excellent tool for self-defense in many situations. Nowadays a cane can also be used as an exercising tool for people of all sexes and age groups.
Benefit
Exercising cane will help improve flexibility of muscles and joints, which benefits old people the most. It also helps burn fat, strengthen leg muscles and improve mobility, maximize oxygen usage efficiency, improve one’s balance and overall health.
Usages
Some Examples : Neck exercise - stretching muscles and preventing injury 1. Turn your face left, straight, and right 2. Look down, straight, and up 3. Tilt your neck left, straight, and right
1
2
3
Waistcloth History
Waistcloth is a multi-purpose piece of fabric used by local Thai men in various daily activities for a very long time. Waistcloth can be worn instead of pants or blanket, and can be used for sun blocking, rubbing the body dry, and carrying items for traveling. In Thailand there are many communities that manufacture and sell waistcloth as their economic products. Generally, a waistcloth is 80x200 cm. in size, and can be used as an exercising tool when folded horizontally.
Benefit
Exercising with waistcloth involves pulling, pushing, lifting and slowly stretching body parts without causing unnecessary impacts that may result in injuries. Waistcloth will help support the muscles and improve the body’s balance; therefore it is suitable for all sexes and age groups, especially elders. It is recommended that beginners should start slowly, lightly and briefly, then gradually exercise longer until they reach 30 minutes point. After that they can add more resistance and speed that are suitable for their physical capability, age and underlying disease (if any). Exercising with waistcloth at a moderate level will result in better health and is also very safe.
Usages
Some Examples : 1. Arms & torso stretch - Exercise your torso, waist, shoulders, arms and back 2. Left & right pull - Improve coordination between muscle tensing and relieving at shoulders, arms and hands in a rhythmic manner 3. Shoulder stretch & stationary walking - Exercise your hip, ankles, abdominal surface and improve balance 4. Overhead kneeing - Exercise your hip, knees, shoulders and arms swinging
Rubber Exercise Background
Used car tires are easy to find and abundant in local communities. The tires can be reused for a new purpose. Rubber Exercise, a design by students of Romklao School, Narathiwat Province, is a case in point.
Benefits
Rubber Exercise enhances the strength and endurance of all muscles in the body and Improves balance. An exercise equipment for all ages and genders, it is easy to use and can be applied with many positions, such as standing, sitting and lying down.
Usages
Exercise is one third of a car tire with a piece of wood placed on top on which users can stand, sit or lie down. 1 Standing position - Life-Right Sway: step on the wood with feet around 40 cm apart and sway to the right and left alternately to work the leg muscles. - Front-Back Sway: put the weight on the front and back leg alternately to work the leg, hip and glute muscles. 2 Sitting position - Sit on the Rubber Exercise with both hands on the sides of the equipment. Put your feet up parallel to the floor. Lean to the right and left to work the arm, leg and abdominal muscles. 3 Lying position - Turn Rubber Exercise upside down. Sit on the tire and do sit-ups to work the leg and abdominal muscles. 4 With Accessories - With accessories, namely, elastic band and PVC pipe: sit or stand on the equipment and lift the pipe in the same manner as weightlifting to work the muscles on both arms.
1
4
2
2
2
3
Background
Plenty of assistive technologies, especially in healthcare and medicine, currently have a significant influence on activities for daily living. In Thailand, most people are aware of selfcare requisites that can be obviously indicated by the higher consumption of the healthy products year by year. In addition, Thai population is now aging rapidly that will become a larger aging society in the near future. Therefore, related equipment or methodology that enhances and promotes health and well-being has a high demand for those people. A physical activity is an interesting alternative approach for Thais to achieve healthy more than conventional way such as exercises. This results in high imports of tracking devices or fitness gadgets which trace the progression of the activities, for example, pedometer and useful mobile applications. However, those physical databases used for calculating and analysing is not wellcomplied with Thai people that cause deviation of investigation. With all of those mentioned, the study and design of physical activity measurement were therefore initiated to evaluate activity levels according to Thai physiology. This can accurately examine energy used, step, distance, and activity intensity that is enough for ordinary diagnostic requirement The current database was collected from 300 participants, including both male and female equally. In accordance with WHO's recommendation regarding physical activity levels, the study complied with the suggestion and also introduced 5 levels of activity intensity for advanced analysis. The proposed activity intensity ranging from minimum to maximum consists of sedentary, low, moderate I, moderate II, and vigorous, respectively. Then an acceleration and oxygen consumption were recorded during having each activity for 60 minutes. The results were compared to Metabolic Equivalent (MET) according to WHO's recommendation activity by activity. After pre-processing of acquired data, statistical tools were employed to compute classification indexes for physical activity analysis. Furthermore, after completion of collecting a database, the indexes were applied to design a novel activity tracker, feelfitÂŽ, which has a 3-axis accelerometer to detect movement intensity from human activities. The output of the sensor was compared to physical activity index in order to determine levels of activity that will be demonstrated as time expenditure every activity.
Benefits
feelfitÂŽ is newly a physical activity tracker which can categorize levels of activity intensity in daily living precisely. The tracker can classify into 5 levels comprising 1) sedentary; i.e. reading and resting 2) low activity; i.e. walking 3) moderate I; i.e. aerobics, jogging, and arm swinging 4) moderate II; i.e. running 5) vigorous; i.e. sports such as football, tennis, and so on. Likewise, the tracker individually indicates calories burned, step, distance, and time expenditure of each activity. Not only daily living activities, feelfitÂŽ was moreover exclusively designed to measure the physical activity for arm swing activity as well as bicycling activity that is more suitable for users.
Usages
For the first usage, users need to input personal information including gender, weight, and height that will be lastingly memorized inside the tracker. Then clearly select desired activity to monitor (from 3 main activities) which each activity would vastly relate to attached position. For the most general activity, users need to attach at waist (or belt level). In case of arm swing activity, wrist position would be preferred. The last is only for bicycling activity that would be attached at an ankle. Users can directly monitor calories burned, step, distance, activity time, and total time, respectively during the usage. After finishing monitoring, the tracker can be reset to zero value for the next use with the same personal information. It should be noted that users can restart the measurement any time that would have to input all info again.
Elastic band History
Exercising elastic band was invented by Associate Professor Jaroen Krabuanrat of Kasetsart University and won the Health Promotion Award from Ministry of Public Health in 2003. It is an affordable exercising tool with great portability, made from simple materials in everyday’s life. You can use this elastic band to exercise all parts of the body, or focus on certain parts that require extensive workout.
Benefit
Exercising elastic band has stretch & reflex capability, meaning that it will create reaction force when being pulled or stretched. This force will help stimulate the sensing nerves of your muscles, making them stronger and more resilient to deterioration, especially in the areas around joints and bones. Exercising elastic band is a resistant-type exercising tool that benefits your body in many aspects: 1. Strengthen the muscles, tendons, and ligaments. 2. Prevent muscle mass deterioration and improve its firmness. 3. Burn fat and calories. 4. Stimulate the digestion, absorption and metabolic systems. 5. Prevent and slow down the deterioration of muscles and bones 6. Prevent and reduce the risk of locked joints, degenerative joints, low bone mass and cancellous bones. 7. Prevent and reduce knee pain, back pain and joint pain. 8. Improve balance, stability and movement coordination of your body. 9. Improve blood circulation to the worked out muscles.
Usages
Some Examples : 1. Standing strength, step on the end of the elastic band and hold the another end of the rope tightly. 2. Pull the elastic band up with the arm at 90 degree with the body then drop the arm down to the starting position and repeat the same action at least 10 times. 1
2
Coconut shell History
Exercising coconut shell is a home-made affordable innovation for workout, suitable for people of all ages and sexes, including the disabled and elders. It helps develop muscles and joint bones, and improve blood circulation to muscular and nerve cells, making you feel vigorous and refreshing. Working people who use their muscles for heavy lifting, long-distance walking or long-hours standing and suffer from muscular aches will find this tool very excellent for muscle relaxation.
Benefit
Exercising coconut shell can be used by 2 people working together. It is therefore suitable for the disabled, elders and people with limited mobility to workout with the help of their caretaker and/or relatives. By using this tool, the caretaker can also enjoy a quality aerobic exercise and provide moral support to the disabled/elders, so they can recover from the illness even faster.
Usages
Some Examples : 1. Each person holds the rings at the end of the rope, keeps the rope not too stretch up, the coconut shells should be slightly lower than the rope level. 2. Each person pulls the rope with the same hand all the way back to the shoulder and pulls the rope by switching the hands at the same position, repeat the action back and forth at least 30 minutes.
1
2
“เพิม่ การขยับระหว่างชมนิทรรศการ มาแกว่งแขนกันเถอะ”