LEAP Together – Linking Elders and children through Active Play

The Dutch population is ageing rapidly, with those aged 65 and older projected to reach 25% by 2040. Age-related changes in health, mobility, and life circumstances can reduce opportunities for social engagement and increase the risk of loneliness. Physical activity guidelines emphasize the importance of movement for health across the lifespan. For older adults, purposeful activities support health and social connection. Research also shows that intergenerational engagement can improve well-being by fostering empathy and shared understanding between age groups. Combining these, intergenerational play (shared activities between younger and older participants) can stimulate social interaction and physical activity.
Despite these benefits, intergenerational play remains underutilized due to market segmentation in playful experiences. Most offerings target either younger or older users, making them ill-suited to connect both groups. Moreover, there is limited knowledge on how to design inclusive play experiences that engage both groups and foster intergenerational interaction.
This project addresses this gap by exploring how user centered design can support the development of inclusive intergenerational play experiences. Older adults, young people, healthcare professionals, and designers will collaborate in a co-design process to create playful interactions that encourage movement and social connection. By bringing designers and health care professionals, experts in older adult care, as critical partners we aim to develop design principles and participatory methods for creating inclusive intergenerational play experiences that can reduce loneliness and encourage physical activity and engagement.
This cross-sectoral approach offers two key benefits: for healthcare, it enables innovative forms of physical engagement, social bonding, and emotional well-being beyond traditional interventions; for designers, it provides opportunities to work with the underrepresented older adults, and develop approaches to addressing loneliness through intergenerational interaction.
The project develops and validates design principles for play-based interventions with potential for impact, implementation, and scaling across care and community contexts.