As our population ages there is an increasing concern that quality of life, in addition to health, deserves attention. Increasing physical activity is a widely used strategy for improving health, but is also a viable strategy to improve quality of life. This study aimed to increase inactive older adult’s quality of life through a 3-month internet-based physical activity intervention. The intervention succeeded in increasing inactive older adult’s quality of life through monitoring, feedback and coaching.
Quality of life, especially emotional and mental health, significantly increased in the intervention group during the intervention period. Nearly half of the participants reached their personalized activity goal, with larger quality of life improvements in this successful group. There was a significant dose-response relationship where increased minutes of MVPA were associated with increased quality of life. This study shows the effectiveness and feasibility of internet-assisted physical activity interventions in an aged population. Future research should determine the effects of this intervention over a longer time period and the utility of wrist-worn accelerometers to distinguish between activities.
> From: Broekhuizen et al., J Med Internet Res 18 (2017-02-21 08:47:57) e74 . All rights reserved to The Author(s). Click here for the online summary.