Design and Evaluation of an Interactive Exercise Coaching System for Older Adults: Lessons Learned

Abstract

Although the positive effects of exercise on the well-being and quality of independent living for older adults are well-accepted, many elderly individuals lack access to exercise facilities, or the skills and motivation to perform exercise at home. To provide a more engaging environment that promotes physical activity, various fitness applications have been proposed. Many of the available products, however, are geared toward a younger population and are not appropriate or engaging for an older population. To address these issues, we developed an automated interactive exercise coaching system using the Microsoft Kinect. The coaching system guides users through a series of video exercises, tracks and measures their movements, provides real-time feedback, and records their performance over time. Our system consists of exercises to improve balance, flexibility, strength, and endurance, with the aim of reducing fall risk and improving performance of daily activities. In this paper, we report on the development of the exercise system, discuss the results of our recent field pilot study with six independently-living elderly individuals, and highlight the lessons learned relating to the in-home system setup, user tracking, feedback, and exercise performance evaluation.

Exercise and rehabilitation delivered through exergames in older adults: An integrative review of technologies, safety and efficacy

“…Seven studies investigated the effect of gaming/VR exercise on gait parameters (63)(64)(65)(66)(67)(68)(69), and six studies examined the effectiveness with regard to different physical functions and associated fall risk (10,(70)(71)(72)(73)(74). The remaining 12 studies investigated the feasibility of using gaming/VR exercise to increase physical activity in healthy older adults (75)(76)(77)(78)(79), in hospitalized older adults (80,81), or in a patient population (82)(83)(84)(85)(86).…”

“…Two studies reported that length of intervention was determined by either the individual participant's physical therapy treatment (49), or phase of dopaminergic medication (85). Three studies did not report on intervention frequency (49,51,62), and three studies did not report on intervention duration (44,62,79). Finally, one study had optional duration (60), and one study had self-regulated duration and frequency of each exercise session (71).…”

“…Step System, SPECTRUM9000MB-500system, UIS Co., Japan) (41), or developed Kinect camera (79). Finally, one study targeted strength with fast sit-to-stand movements using a set of uni-axial force plates, so called lower limb power rehabilitation (67).…”

“…Furthermore, 11 of the Nintendo Wii studies used games that targeted balance only (11, 35, 37, 42-44, 47, 57, 58, 73, 82), while 16 used a combination of games that targeted different physical functions in addition to balance, such as strength, endurance, and mobility (10,13,32,40,45,49,52,56,60,69,70,74,77,80,81,86). For those studies that did not utilize Nintendo Wii, only three studies (51,79,84) aimed to have an effect on more than one physical function. As can be seen in Table 4, the studies utilizing commercially available exergames targeted a wide variety of physical functions and activities, with balance being the main target of improvement (see Table 4 for references).…”

Video-based Feedback for Assisting Physical Activity

“…Usually, the supervised therapy session is done within a short period of time mainly due to economical reasons. In order to support and maintain the rehabilitation of stroke survivors, continuous home based therapy systems are being investigated [Langhorne et al, 2005, Zhou and Hu, 2008, Sucar et al, 2010, Hondori et al, 2013, Mousavi Hondori and Khademi, 2014, Chaaraoui et al, 2012, Ofli et al, 2016. Having these systems at home and easily accessible, the patients keep a good level of motivation to do more exercise.…”