Increasing Physical Activity Through Social Support and Stress Resilience

Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn the effects of technology enhancements when combined with basic education, goal-setting, and self-monitoring to increase physical activity among older adults living alone, experiencing subjective cognitive decline, and currently engaging minimal physical activity (60 minutes or less of moderate to vigorous physical activity). Further, we will examine key psychosocial mechanisms believed to contribute to successful promotion of physical activity, which include social support and stress resilience.

The primary questions are to determine whether

* the tech-enhanced condition lead to greater physical activity over time?
* the tech-enhanced condition lead to social support and stress resilience over time?
* social support and stress resilience mediate the relationship between the study condition and physical activity?

All participants will engage in self-monitoring of physical activity, will receive weekly text reminders of their physical activity goals for the week, and will receive basic education about the importance of physical activity, social support, and stress resilience for cognitive, physical, and psychological health. Participants in the tech-enhanced condition will also receive access to a study-specific website and virtual coaching to reinforce the information presented. Researchers will then compare the tech-enhanced condition to the basic education condition to determine the benefits of technology to deliver the intervention materials in order to increase physical activity, social support, and stress resilience.

Participants will:

* Use a Garmin wearable device to monitor their physical activity
* Be randomly assigned to a basic education condition or tech-enhanced condition
* Set achievable goals for weekly physical activity, with incremental increases to achieve 7000 average daily steps by the end of the study
* Respond to surveys to monitor their social support, stress resilience, quality of life, and depression.

The sample has several risk factors for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias: low physical activity, social isolation risk via living alone, and subjective cognitive impairment. Therefore, a long-term goal includes the determination of the intervention's effectiveness at increasing physical activity, social support, and stress resilience to reduce risk for developing dementia.

Conditions

• Healthy
• Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD)
• Sedentary Behavior
• Social Isolation in Older Adults

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Self-monitoring

All participants will receive a Garmin and use the associated app to monitor their weekly physical activity. Enrolled participants are insufficiently active (engaging in 60 minutes or less of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week) and will receive weekly text messages to incrementally increase physical activity over the course of the study. Goals will be 20% greater than the average daily steps from the previous week, with the ultimate goal of reaching 7000 average daily steps. 7000 average daily steps was selected based on recent findings that it is associated with clinically meaningful health outcomes and being an achievable target for most adults.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute on Aging (NIA)

  collaborator NIH

• Arizona State University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Molly Maxfield · Arizona State University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

60 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-06-23

Primary Completion

2026-12-31

Completion

2027-01-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations