Pettersson B1, Janols R1, Sandlund M1
1Umeå University, Dept of Community Medicine and Rehabilitation, Umeå, Sweden
Background: Falls present the most common cause of unintentional injuries among older people. Given the growing population of older people, evidence based, accessible and cost-effective ways of preventing falls and fall related injuries need to be presented. Self-management has been proven to be an effective way of promoting physical activity and management of chronic conditions. Digital health could be an effective way of delivering self-management exercise to reach many older people. Still, many applications and programs does not incorporate the use of behaviour change strategies or include the end-users in the development.
Purpose: To, in collaboration with older people, develop motivational support for a mobile fall prevention exercise application, and evaluate seniors' experience of using it during an intervention.
Methods: Motivational support was developed by researchers together with older people though a participatory actions research design. In a series of three workshops, nine older people divided in two groups participated. The workshops were focused on the design and development of tasks related to activity planning, exercise registration and presentation of results. In addition, messages for notifications and reminders were written and discussed. Home-works relevant to the theme of the next workshop were completed between the sessions. The resulting motivational support was included in a digital exercise program, developed in a previous co-creation project, and tested in a feasibility study, ongoing for four months. After 2-3 weeks entering the feasibility study participants were interviewed, over telephone, and asked about their experience of the application. At the end of the study two focus group interviews with 12 older people were conducted and the motivational support was further evaluated.
Results: Through the work-shops both the content and design of the motivational support were co-created to be inspiring, relevant and user-friendly. During the workshops it emerged that the seniors experienced feed-back messages differently depending on who the sender was, and what was perceived as a motivational expression or not varied between individuals. Therefore, three virtual physiotherapist delivering the feed-back messages with different motivational profiles was developed. The profiles were identified by the participants as important when interacting with a health professional; enthusiastic, interested, or information oriented. Focus group interviews after the feasibility study showed that the developed motivational features were perceived as overall encouraging and supportive in the exercise. The virtual physiotherapist was perceived as both personal and motivational when using the application. Another view was that the content of the messages was important but not who delivered them.
Conclusion(s): When developing motivational feed-back messages to reinforce exercise among older people, the individual preferences need to be taken into consideration. Older people contributed with valuable views in the development of this behavioural change support. A virtual physiotherapist could be feasible way of delivering support when using a completely self-managed exercise program.
Implications: Based on the evaluation, the motivational features will be further developed and tested in a future randomized controlled trial.
Keywords: Fall prevention, Exercise, Digital Health
Funding acknowledgements: This work was financially supported by the Strategic Research
Programme in Care Sciences, Umeå University and The Karolinska Institute, Sweden.
Purpose: To, in collaboration with older people, develop motivational support for a mobile fall prevention exercise application, and evaluate seniors' experience of using it during an intervention.
Methods: Motivational support was developed by researchers together with older people though a participatory actions research design. In a series of three workshops, nine older people divided in two groups participated. The workshops were focused on the design and development of tasks related to activity planning, exercise registration and presentation of results. In addition, messages for notifications and reminders were written and discussed. Home-works relevant to the theme of the next workshop were completed between the sessions. The resulting motivational support was included in a digital exercise program, developed in a previous co-creation project, and tested in a feasibility study, ongoing for four months. After 2-3 weeks entering the feasibility study participants were interviewed, over telephone, and asked about their experience of the application. At the end of the study two focus group interviews with 12 older people were conducted and the motivational support was further evaluated.
Results: Through the work-shops both the content and design of the motivational support were co-created to be inspiring, relevant and user-friendly. During the workshops it emerged that the seniors experienced feed-back messages differently depending on who the sender was, and what was perceived as a motivational expression or not varied between individuals. Therefore, three virtual physiotherapist delivering the feed-back messages with different motivational profiles was developed. The profiles were identified by the participants as important when interacting with a health professional; enthusiastic, interested, or information oriented. Focus group interviews after the feasibility study showed that the developed motivational features were perceived as overall encouraging and supportive in the exercise. The virtual physiotherapist was perceived as both personal and motivational when using the application. Another view was that the content of the messages was important but not who delivered them.
Conclusion(s): When developing motivational feed-back messages to reinforce exercise among older people, the individual preferences need to be taken into consideration. Older people contributed with valuable views in the development of this behavioural change support. A virtual physiotherapist could be feasible way of delivering support when using a completely self-managed exercise program.
Implications: Based on the evaluation, the motivational features will be further developed and tested in a future randomized controlled trial.
Keywords: Fall prevention, Exercise, Digital Health
Funding acknowledgements: This work was financially supported by the Strategic Research
Programme in Care Sciences, Umeå University and The Karolinska Institute, Sweden.
Topic: Older people; Older people
Ethics approval required: Yes
Institution: Umeå university, Sweden
Ethics committee: The Umeå Regional Ethics Board
Ethics number: 2016/106-31
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
