DDR for Older People?

[curiousgeorge]

I work for a physical therapist who mentioned that DDR might be helpful in rehabbing older patients, but he found that most of the music (techno/hiphop) wasn't right for his purposes.

My question is, is there other types of music available? Something softer that might appeal to older people, or even line dancing type stuff?

I'm not looking for illeagal downloads. Just wondering what other options there might be.

[videoCWK]

Nah, what you've heard is pretty much all there is.
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[curiousgeorge]

That's too bad, but thanks for responding.

I really like ur banner.

[#Infinity]

Older players tend to most enjoy the songs from DDR that most players can't stand. My mom, for example, loves I'm For Real. Overall, I think DDRMAX is your best bet if you want an older person-friendly DDR since there's a large selection of calmer, more laid-back songs to choose from.
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[__]

Go here:

http://www.ddrfreak.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=128935

[Arctic Wolves]

[#Infinity]

Yeah, it's too bad there's no Beginner's mode, but there are at least a few songs that they can learn off of (i.e., Remember You Light) before trying out the more difficult songs, so it's not too big of a deal so long as they can locate the 1-footers (and with enough practice, it shouldn't take too long to make it to 2 and 3-footers). Overall, I still think it's the best. None of the other PS2 installments imo feature songlists anywhere close to decent for an older audience (Extreme and SuperNova are okay in one sense because they both feature a few oldies such as Y.M.C.A. and Let's Dance, but otherwise nah).
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[videoCWK]

It's good that it lacks beginner mode, because when they complained it was too hard we'd get a chance to say "Well when I was a kid Light was all we had. It wasn't even called light, back then we called it Basic. And we were happy just to have DDR"
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[Arctic Wolves]

We need to keep in mind, however, that not only are these potential players older than typical DDR players, they are also in physical rehabilitation, meaning their physical capabilities are in some way diminished. I fully agree that the only way to learn the game is to play Basic and beyond, and most players decide Beginner is too easy on their own, but these people aren't getting into the game to improve in that way; they're being introduced to it in an attempt to get them moving again.

Then again, who knows, it might be a real hit.

I suppose the bottom line is, most of the games, at least post-EXTREME, do try to include some songs from older decades, and other relaxed songs in order to maintain a diverse selection, but the majority of most song lists are typical DDR fare: club and dance music.
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[ChilliumBromide]

[Slowpoke]

[Z.ack]

[rddr]

[ChilliumBromide]

A thought just occurred to me.

Why not just recommend they take up dancing or a martial art? I do all three (Aikido, DDR, and Dance), and of the three, DDR does the least for my body. Dancing is a far more rigorous excercise and Aikido is much more effective at getting my body moving right. In fact, I find that my scores fall dramatically if I don't go to Aikido for a while.

It seems that most of these older patients would opt for that over some video game any way, and the ones who opt for DDR are the ones who are more likely to be capable of getting into the DDR music.
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I used to be active here lol

[Slowpoke]

[HumanBeing]

Some DDR games have a few "oldies" on them. You'll have to look through lists of the songs available on each individual game to see what they contain, and even then many will need to be unlocked (which usually occurs through continual play. Play so many times, and a song unlocks, etc...). You can search on gamefaqs.com for unlock files for each of the games and you will need to purchase whatever device the unlock file is for, and use that to transfer the data to the PS2 memory card (which you'll also need to purchase at least one of those).

Of course there are games for other systems as well, but PS2 has the majority of DDR games.

They can play on Beginner or Light modes, most likely.
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I'm a human being! :-O

[ChilliumBromide]

[curiousgeorge]

Thank you to Legendary N8 for the incredibly helpful link and to all of the other comments on possible difficulty level issues. I will pass all of the info on to my boss so he can take it into consideration.

To those who asked, my boss chose this game over others as a possible option because he thought that the patients being able to see their progress in terms of an objective score might provide incentive to work futher.

I'm not sure what type of console he might use though.

[MaxxOverload]

I am with you on rehabing DDR for older patients. DDR is a great workout that may help a patients joints and muscles. DDR can obviosly have much more uses than a workout and a good play.
I'm sorry to say that you really can't download songs onto the game that you have, because the songs are permanently ripped into the disk, and you'll have to be pretty clever to get new songs on the permanent game disc.
I suggest getting an ITG cabinet and migrate stepcharts and songs from Stepmania and upload them on a USB flash drive. Then connect the USB flash drive to the cabinet and upload the edits. This will take some time and patience so try Googling ''ITG hacking'' or look up R21 for more information.
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Signed off