Effects of an mHealth Brisk Walking Intervention on Increasing Physical Activity in Older People With Cognitive Frailty: Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND Cognitive frailty is a co-existence of both physical frailty and cognitive impairment and an at-risk state for many adverse health outcomes, including dementia, dependency, and mortality. Moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) is protective against the progression of cognitive frailty. Physical inactivity is still common in older people. Brisk walking is a feasible form of physical activity for older people to practise to enhance their MVPA. M-health employing persuasive technology has been successful to increase their levels of physical activity. However, its feasibility and effects on older people with cognitive frailty are unclear. OBJECTIVE The aims of this study were to 1) identify issues relating to the feasibility of the intervention and the trial, and 2) examine the effects of the intervention on cognitive function, physical frailty, walking, and MVPA. METHODS An open-label, two-parallel-groups, randomized controlled trial (RCT) was employed. The eligibility criteria were 1) ≥ 60 years, 2) having cognitive frailty, and 3) having physical inactivity. In the intervention group, participants received both conventional behavioural change and m-health (i.e., smartphone-assisted programme using Samsung Health and WhatsApp) interventions. In the control group, participants received conventional behavioural change intervention only. The outcomes included cognitive function, frailty, walking, and MVPA. Permuted block randomization in a ratio of 1:1 was used. Issue of feasibility was described in terms of subject recruitment, retention, participation and compliance. Wilcoxon sign-rank test was used to test the within-group effects in both groups separately. The level of significance was 0.05. RESULTS We recruited 99 subjects and 33 eligible subjects were randomized into either intervention (n=16) or control (n=17) group. Their median age was 71.0 years (IQR=9.0) and the majority of them were female (n=28, 85%). The recruitment rate was 33%, the subject retention rate was 90%, the attendance rate of all face-to-face sessions was 100%. The majority of smartphone messages were read the participants within 30 minutes (42.1%). ActiGraph (88%) and smartphone (94%) wearing compliances were good. After the interventions, cognitive function improvement was significant in both the intervention (P=.003) and control (P=.009) groups. Frailty reduction (P=.005), walking-time increase (P=.03), step-count increase (P=.02), brisk-walking time increase (P=.009), peak-cadence increase (P=.003), and MVPA time increase (P=.02) were significant only in the intervention group. CONCLUSIONS It is feasible to implement this m-health intervention in older people with cognitive impairment. The m-health intervention is effective at enhancing compliance with the brisk-walking training programme delivered by conventional behavioural change interventions. This study provided preliminary evidence that this m-health intervention can increase MVPA time to an extent sufficient to yield clinical benefits (i.e., a reduction in cognitive frailty). Further studies should employ a full-powered and assessor-blinded RCT to warrant these effects. CLINICALTRIAL This pilot randomized controlled trial has been registered with the Hong Kong University Clinical Trials Registry (HKUCTR-2283, http://www.hkuctr.com/Study/Show/31df4708944944bd99e730d839db4756).

Health factors associated with cognitive frailty in older adults living in the community

“…These findings contribute to the growing body of evidence supporting the beneficial effects of physical activity, particularly at intensities higher than moderate, in the management of cognitive frailty. Similar positive effects of increasing MVPA levels on cognitive frailty have been observed in both shorter (12 weeks) (Kwan et al, 2020) and longer interventions (24 months) (Liu et al, 2018). These findings underscore the importance of incorporating progressively regular and sustained MVPA into the daily-life style of older adults with frailty with or without cognitive impairment at preventing and managing cognitive frailty in older adults.…”

Effectiveness of a multicomponent exercise intervention in community-dwelling older Chinese people with cognitive frailty: protocol for a mixed-methods research

“…Older adults with cognitive frailty are acknowledged to be frailer compared to their healthier peers. Furthermore, they tend to have sedentary lifestyle and engage less in physical activity (Kwan et al, 2020). Research has indicated that a sedentary lifestyle and physical inactivity are associated with adverse health outcomes (Theou et al, 2017).…”

“…Previous studies among cognitive frailty have predominantly focused on intervention effectiveness related to frailty, cognitive function, muscle-related outcomes, physical functional abilities, and quality of life. However, there's been a lack of attention to intervention effects on senior fitness, sleep quality, and mental health (Yoon et al, 2018;Kwan et al, 2020). Researchers are encouraged to explore the effectiveness of exercise interventions from a broad perspective for comprehensive effectiveness evaluation, considering exercise interventions have been proven to offer a wide range of health benefits (Qiao et al, 2022).…”