Getting a Bedridden Elderly Person Moving: A Thoughtful Voice Exercise Skill
A few days agomy grandmother fell and was bedridden for a whileThe doctor said that if elderly people stay immobile for too longtheir muscles can atrophyso they need to do some rehabilitation exercises within their abilityBut here's the problem—I have to work during the dayand my parents are busy tooWho will be there every day to count reps and remind them of the movements? Laterwhile browsing GitHubI came across a skill called "Eldercare Exercise — Bài tập cho người nằm giường" by a Vietnamese developernclamvnIt felt tailor-made!
Simply putthis skill is a program that uses a smart speaker (like XiaoAi or similar) to guide elderly people through simple exercises step by step with voice commandsIt doesn't require the elderly person to operate any device—as long as the speaker can hear the instructionsthey just follow the voiceAnd it comes with three built-in difficulty levels:
- Level 1 — Very Light (Bedridden Only): 7 exercisesincluding deep breathingwrist rotationsfist clenchingarm raisesleg bendsankle rotationsand a final deep breath to wrap upTotal time is about 10 minutes.
- Level 2 — Light (Can Sit Up): Adds shoulder rotationsside leansand seated leg raises on top of Level 1Total time is 15 minutes.
- Level 3 — Moderate (Can Stand with Support): Adds standing up holding a chairmarching in placeand heel raisesTotal time is 20 minutes.
Each movement has detailed verbal instructionsFor example"Ba ơimình tập thể dục nhẹ nha!" (Grandmalet's do some light exercise!)followed by step-by-step guidanceIn the middlethere are counts like "Mộthaiba" (onetwothree)with a rhythm of every 3 secondsvery slowAfter finishing a movementit gently says "Nghỉ một chút nha bà" (Rest a bitGrandma)waits 10 secondsthen proceeds to the next oneFinallyit praises with "Bà tập xong rồi! Giỏi quá!" (Grandma finished! Great job!) and reminds them to drink water.
How to Set It Up at Home?
This skill is designed to work with a smart home platformYou need a Home Assistant environment with theplugin installedThe installation command is super simple:
npx skills add --skill eldercare-exerciseAfter installationyou need to configure a media player entity in Home Assistant (such as the ID of your living room smart speaker) and a motion sensor entity (to detect if the elderly person is sleeping)The skill is disabled by default to prevent accidental triggersYou can enable it by sending a message "bật tập thể dục" (Vietnamese for "turn on exercise") in the chat windowOf courseyou can also use the English command: "enable exercise."
Daily Use Scenarios
Imagine this: every morning at 9 o'clockthe speaker in the elderly person's room automatically rings out: "Grandmalet's do a light exercise! Are you ready?" If the elderly person is still asleep at that time (the motion sensor detects no movement for the last half hour)the skill smartly skips the session and tries again at 10 o'clockIf there is an emergency call in the house (such as SOS or video call)it also automatically cancels to avoid disturbance.
Want to give the elderly person an extra session on the fly? Just send a message "tập thể dục cho bà" (do exercise for Grandma)and it starts immediatelyWant to turn off the reminder? Send "tắt tập thể dục"Want to change the level? Send "đổi level 2"You can even check if the exercise was done today: "bà tập chưa".
Safety FirstDon't Forget This
There is a prominent disclaimer on the page: all exercise programs should first be consulted with a doctorespecially if the elderly person has underlying health conditionsIf during the practice they feel pain or discomfortstop immediatelyThis skill is just a tool and cannot replace professional rehabilitation guidanceAdditionallythe TTS volume is set to maximum (because elderly people may have poor hearing)the speech rate is slowed down to 0.7and there is a 2-3 second pause between each sentenceIt's very considerate.
To be honestwhen I first saw this skillI was a bit amazed that an open-source project could be so finely detailed: automatically skipping sleeplogging training recordssending notifications to family groupsand supporting multiple users (so you can configure it for both Grandma and Grandpa separately)The author even reserved data storage—daily training records are saved as JSON for later analysisAlthough the interface is in Vietnamesethe core logic is abstractso you can easily adapt it into a Chinese version (you just need to replace the TTS message text).
In shortif you have an elderly person at home with limited mobilitythis skill is worth a tryBut remember to communicate with the family first to make sure the elderly person is willing to participateAfter allthe best technology makes people feel cared fornot cold machine commands.
(P.S.: The repository has many more treasure skillssuch as elderly fall detectionmedication remindersetcYou can check the author's profile: nclamvn.)
