Personalized Exercise Programs for Older Adults - a Digital User-friendly Application

Summary

Scientific Background:

Despite the known health benefits of exercising during old age, older people remain highly sedentary. Official exercise guidelines aimed specifically at older people focus primarily on aerobic activity, and tend to be over generalized.There is need for personalized exercise programs, which account for the increasing variability in measures of fitness and mobility with advancing age, and offer exercises aimed at improving balance, strength, flexibility and aerobic fitness, and which can be performed at home. Advancing smartphone technology provides tools which might help address this important area of public health.

Study Aims:

To develop a novel digital smartphone app, which enables assessment of fitness components, and provides personalized comprehensive exercise programs which update at regular intervals according to changes in fitness levels.

Methodology:

A prospective interventional randomized control study involving 360 people aged ≥65 living at home/ sheltered living. Stage 1 will include selecting exercise and fitness tests, developing a smartphone app for self-assessment of these tests, and designing exercise programs to meet specific capabilities. A pilot study (n=60) will validate results from the app compared to standard laboratory tests, before finalizing the study platform, and will create a platform for matching exercise programs to levels of fitness. At Stage 2 - the main study - participants (n=300) will be randomly assigned to the intervention group (personalized updating exercise program via the app), an active control group (receiving World Health Organization (WHO) exercise guidelines), or control group (no intervention). Using the app for assessment, all participants will be tested during stage 2 at T0 (baseline), T1 (6 week) T2 (12 weeks), and during Stage 3 follow-up at T3 (18 weeks) and T4 (24 weeks).

Novelty and Applicability:

This innovative technology will enable older people to test their fitness level, and receive a personalized exercise program based on their current ability and preferences, which changes over time according to their progress. The program will be presented as photos and short videos, available on their smartphones, or easily transferable to computer or television (TV) screens.

Conditions

• Healthy Older Adults
• Exercise

Interventions

OTHER

Personalized exercise program

Home-based personalized exercise program using a smart phone app

OTHER

WHO exercise guidelines

Standard exercise counselling according to WHO guidelines

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Zinman College of Physical Education and Sports Sciences

  collaborator OTHER

• Hadassah Medical Organization

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Jeremy M Jacobs, MBBS BSc · Hadassah Medical Organization

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

65 Years

Max Age

99 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-10-27

Primary Completion

2022-12-30

Completion

2022-12-30

Countries

• Israel

Study Locations