GERMANY:Visitors to Berlin soon notice that playgrounds are not something the German capital lacks.
A modest baby boom in recent years has meant that every piece of green space and every war-time gap between two buildings now has a slide, roundabout and climbing frame.
But in a nod to another more dramatic demographic development - Germany's rapidly ageing population - city fathers have spent €25,000 on a playground for pensioners.
The new playground opened on Monday in the western neighbourhood of Wilmersdorf, famed for its high proportion of elderly war widows with little white dogs.
Now Wilmersdorf's Prussian Park is home to eight machines of stainless steel and plastic designed to improve the co-ordination, heart rate and even posture of older Germans.
One mechanism, a swing for the legs, helps train calf muscles; another machine, featuring a rotating red disc with hand grips,trains the arms.
A third machine, a long pole with nobbles on it, allows users to massage their back.
"That felt marvellous. I'm going to be back soon with my husband Wolfgang," said a lightly sweating Roswitha Völz, one of the first pensioners to try the back massager.
The idea for the machines, built by the company Playfit, came when company director Renate Zeumer visited Beijing five years ago and saw pensioners in a pedestrian zone working the exercise machines, oblivious to passers-by.
Her company has reworked the concept for Germany and has developed a line of machines suitable for anyone 1 m 50 (4ft 11in) or taller.
It turns out that Germans are late to the game. Finland already has a network of playgrounds to encourage "inter-generational play", like the one at the Santa Claus Sports Institute in Lapland.
Researchers at the University of Lapland discovered in a study of older playground users that after just three months on the machines they had built muscle tissue, reduced fat and improved their speed and co-ordination.
The idea is spreading throughout Germany. Already Nuremberg city council has lodged proposals for a fully-equipped adult version of a children's playground.
"The swings have to be weight-adapted, of course," said deputy mayor Horst Förther. "I always fear that I will break the anchorings when I sit down on the swing with my granddaughter."
Outside the Berlin complex, a sign warns children that they can only use the playground under adult supervision.
Smoking is forbidden, as are dogs. This is Germany, after all, and playtime - even for pensioners - is a serious business.