Exercise game feasible in community care for older adults
A 16-week randomized pilot in 31 low-income older adults living alone found no statistically significant benefits after adjustment for multiple tests.
Our read
Interventions- Studied:
- Randomized trial in 31 low-income older adults living alone, 16 weeks (Blinded, sample size calculated, registered NCT06664229)
- What changed:
- The community-care exercise-game trial retained 25 of 31 randomized older adults through the postintervention assessment
- The catch:
- Attention and social contact were confounded with training because controls received no intervention
- In the record:
- The 94th paper on exergaming with results in people; 156 on record in all. Its result on physical function agrees with 18 of 19 other findings on record; 1 found no change.
Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Thirty-one low-income older adults living alone in Seoul, South Korea, entered a pilot randomized controlled trial of Brain Step, a pressure-sensing exercise game. Their mean age was 81.5 years; 26 were women. All received Public Community Care services. Sixteen were assigned to 16 weeks of gaming and 15 to no intervention.
No differences between groups in cognitive or physical changes remained statistically significant after accounting for multiple tests. The authors regarded possible muscle preservation and exploratory memory improvements in higher-risk subgroups as leads for further testing. An earlier uncontrolled, 12-week pilot in 15 community-dwelling older adults found improvements in balance and mobility that survived this correction. Together, the studies supported delivery through existing community care. A separate one-week preliminary test in four older adults reported no adverse events.
Why it matters
Age-related declines in thinking and movement can reinforce one another. Delivering combined training through public care offers a way to test approaches for socially vulnerable older adults underrepresented in digital health research.
Caveats
The small pilot trial compared gaming with no intervention, rather than another activity, and six participants withdrew. Participants could walk independently, most were women, and all attended one center; people with severe hearing or vision impairments were excluded.
From the paper
- Participants
All 31 randomized participants were included in the intention-to-treat analysis (82 total observations across 3 time points).
- Events by group
At the postintervention assessment, fall incidence was numerically lower in the intervention group than in the control group (5/14, 35.7% vs 7/11, 63.6%; OR 0.32, 95% CI 0.06-1.64).
Results, Intervention Effects on Secondary and Other Health Outcomes
- Limitation
The small sample size (n=15 for the pilot study; n=31 for the pilot RCT) limited statistical power, and no findings survived FDR correction.
Quoted word for word from the full text on PubMed Central.
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