Usability and Feasibility of an Occupational Exergame-based Intervention

Summary

High levels of sustained sedentary time in office workers are associated with non-communicable diseases as e.g. cardio-vascular diseases or diabetes. Moreover, recent evidence has further suggested a relationship between prolonged sitting periods and adverse mental health outcomes. Based on these facts, various types of occupational health-related interventions have already been undertaken, thereby mostly focusing on physical aspects. However, a promising intervention option that has only rarely been investigated in this context, are so-called exergames, which allow a combined physical and cognitive training in a motivating and time-efficient manner. This pilot trial aims to determine the usability and feasibility of an exergame-based intervention targeting occupational health aspects, whilst secondarily exploring potential effects on physical and cognitive functions.

The study is planned for healthy (self-reported) office workers, aged between 18 and 65 years. Participants are asked to perform a minimum of 18 training sessions with a duration of 10-20 minutes during a period of six weeks. The design is planned as a two-arm crossover trial, where participants will randomly get allocated to a group, and either start with the training period or the control period (no training). After having completed the six-week training period, participants will evaluate the usability and report their experience with the exergame device. In terms of evaluation of the feasibility, adherence and attrition rates will be calculated at the end of the study. Before, after six weeks, as well as after 12 weeks, cognitive and physical assessments will be performed and questionnaires on behalf of stress experience and management will be elicited.

The findings of this pilot trial will help to explore the possibilities of designing occupational health interventions by the implementation of motor-cognitive exergames. In addition, this trial offers the possibility of exploratorily analyzing the effects of exergame training in office-workers.

Conditions

• Healthy

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Exergame training

During the exergame intervention period, the participants in the respective group will be asked to train at least two times per week for 10 minutes per session. The proposed 10 to 15 min-sessions can also be split up into multiple short training slots during the day, to thus reach the targeted 10 minutes. Moreover, the participants are allowed to train even more during their "exergame-intervention" period of six weeks. However, during the control period of six weeks, they are prohibited from training on the device. The training program will start with four pre-defined programs of the Dividat Senso (Dividat AG, Schindellegi, Switzerland; CE certification) program. This training program will be adapted weekly by the investigator to generate new stimuli through varying games and thereby also further support the motivation.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Eling D de Bruin, Prof. · [email protected]

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-06-01

Primary Completion

2021-09-30

Completion

2021-09-30

Countries

• Switzerland

Study Locations