Cassandra Morrison, director of the National Council for Senior Citizens (NCSC), says engaging senior citizens in activities like dominoes promotes healthy, active ageing and combats isolation, particularly among men.

On Thursday, the National Association of Domino Bodies/NCSC domino tournament, held at St Elizabeth Technical High School, brought together teams from St Andrew, St Catherine, Clarendon, St Elizabeth, and Manchester, showcasing the competitive spirit and camaraderie among senior citizens. St Elizabeth defeated Manchester 20-12 to take the Region Two title at the tournament.

“I think, despite the weather, we had an awesome day today. We are all about promoting healthy, active, and productive ageing and we try all of these types of events to get our senior men out,” Morrison said.

Morrison noted that men are at risk when isolated, and chronic conditions can affect them.

“We know that men are at risk when they are isolated when we have the chronic conditions that affect them and so it is very important for men to participate in activities such as our domino competitions,” she said.

Morrison noted that men often withdraw from positive activities, instead of gravitating towards less desirable pursuits, and that the NCSC aims to reverse this trend through initiatives like the domino tournament.

“The point is true that we have a lot more women participating in these activities than men. The fact of the matter is that women are more easily engaged and women as aged they are more active, and we find the men withdrawing themselves sometimes in negative activities.

“We find them in the bars and other places we don’t want them, but the NCSC is taking different approaches, which the domino is one, to find the men and to get them actively engaged in things that they like to do. A lot of our activities really, I would say, they are probably easier for women to be accustomed to and so we have to try and find different activities that men like that they would want to participating in so that we can have them coming out and engaged,” Morrison explained.

Humbert Davis, president of the NADB, continued to praise the dominoe cognitive benefits.

“Playing dominoes boosts memory and engages the brain and mind, facilitating information encoding, storage, and retrieval,” he said.