2021/01/25 by Sumit Mehra, Jantine van den Helder, Mehra, Sumit +9
Health Professions · Medicine · Psychology · #Behavioral Health and Interventions #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Human-Computer Interaction (cs.HC) #Mobile Health and mHealth Applications #Physical Activity and Health
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2101.10140
openalex publication_date 2021/01/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Sufficient physical activity can prolong the ability of older adults to live\ninde-pendently. Community-based exercise programs can be enhanced by regularly\nperforming exercises at home. To support such a home-based exercise program, a\nblended intervention was developed that combined the use of a tablet\napplication with a personal coach. The purpose of the current study was to\nexplore to which extent tablet engagement predicted exercise adherence and\nphysical activity. The results show that older adults (n=133; M=71 years of\nage) that participated 6 months in a randomized controlled trial, performed at\naverage 12 home-based ex-ercised per week and exercised on average 3 days per\nweek, thereby meeting WHO guidelines. They used the tablet app on average 7\ntimes per week. Multiple linear regressions revealed that the use of the app\nstatistically predicted the num-ber of exercises that were performed and the\nnumber of exercise days. Physical activity, however, did not increase and also\ncould not be predicted by exercise frequency or app use. We conclude that\nengagement with a tablet can contribute to sustained exercise behavior.\n