FORMER Australian rugby league player Steve Mortimer gave the residents of Nowra’s Jonathan Rogers House reason to smile on Wednesday.
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OAM Mortimer and his son Andrew, who run Australian shuffleboard, guided the RSL Lifecare Village residents through an interesting and engaging talk on the many benefits of playing the game .
The village has a shuffleboard for some time but it was very underutilised.
However, having spent time with the informative Mortimer, the residents are keen to participate more regularly, so much so, they are even are discussing inter village games.
“Shuffleboards are proving to be beneficial in multiple ways, providing a great sense of achievement and social inclusion,” Mortimer said to the residents on the day.
“The shuffleboard doesn’t discriminate and can be played by any age.”
Shuffleboard, played at hip-height, pits players against each other as they glide pucks down the table into scoring zones – with similar rules to lawn bowls.
Western Sydney University was commissioned by the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVET) to conduct an independent health study on the health impacts on seniors of Steve Mortimer’s Australian Shuffleboard system.
Professor John McCallum, Western Sydney University Specialist in Ageing Research Dean, found evidence of numerous benefits for seniors and said:
“The evidence collected and analysed in this study provides a major new contribution to the literature on the impact of physical activities and recreation on older people,” McCallum said.