Physical exercise for healthy ageing, articulating research and extension

Abstract

The objective of the article is to reflect on how the methodological construction of a project carried out in centers for retirees, allowed the articulation of intervention extension practices with research strategies, oriented to the construction of knowledge related to the impact of the pandemic on elderly. The project set out to design a multi-component exercise plan focused on people in order to improve their physical capacities: strength, resistance, balance and flexibility, and to promote other healthy habits to counteract the possible sequelae of COVID-19 in older people of Piñeyro. Its implementation contributed to make students, graduates and professors form a team, giving rise to significant learning based on the conception of a critical and reflective professional, and fostered the dialectical integration between theory and practice. As a result, the participating elderly people adhered to physical exercise improved their functional capacity and interpersonal ties. For their part, the participating students acquired knowledge and specific ways of operating to professional practice. In addition, the curricularization of the extension allowed the problem of ageing to enter the classroom, thus contributing to the actions proposed by the Decade of Healthy Ageing.