Prevention Matters

London's aging baby boomers will soon get their own specially designed outdoor playground. The park will offer low-impact exercise equipment to help older people improve their balance and flexibility and tone muscles that may not have been tested for decades.

"We wanted something that would be of long-term benefit to people, so we came up with this idea for an older person's playground," says Madeline Elsdon, whose local residents' association has won funding for the playground, which is planned for London's popular Hyde Park.

Exercise areas aimed at the elderly are popular in Europe and Asia, and there's already a U.K. precedent—an over-60 playground billed as Britain's first opened in Manchester's Dam Head Park two years ago. The equipment there was still seeing use Wednesday—with senior citizens swinging their legs and working their hips on the machines despite temperatures that hovered around freezing.