Feasibility and Acceptability of Home-Based Exercise Snacking and Tai Chi Snacking Delivered Remotely to Self-Isolating Older Adults During COVID-19

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility and acceptability of remotely delivered, home-based exercise programs on physical function and well-being in self-isolating older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a four-arm randomized controlled trial, 63 participants (aged 65 years and older) were allocated to one of three home-based daily (2 × 10-min) exercise interventions (exercise snacking, tai chi snacking, and combination) or control (UK National Health Service Web pages). Functional assessments were conducted via video call at baseline and 4-week follow-up. A web-based survey assessed the acceptability of each exercise program and secondary psychological/well-being outcomes. Ecological momentary assessment data, collected in Weeks 1 and 4, explored feeling states as antecedents and consequences of exercise. All intervention groups saw increased physical function at follow-up and displayed good adherence with exercise snacking considered the most acceptable program. Multilevel models revealed reciprocal associations between feelings of energy and exercise engagement. Further studies are needed with larger, more diverse demographic samples.

Feasibility and acceptability of a remotely delivered, home-based, pragmatic resistance ‘exercise snacking’ intervention in community-dwelling older adults: a pilot randomised controlled trial

“…While the short-term duration of the exercise intervention also likely influenced the magnitude of any changes (or between group differences) in physical function, previous findings suggest similar pragmatic and unsupervised resistance exercise approaches can be effective for improving measures of physical function (e.g., 60-second sit-to-stand performance) after 4 weeks [ 17 ]. Nevertheless, our findings are consistent with another study [ 26 ] that also showed no difference in changes in physical function measures assessed remotely using videoconferencing after 4 weeks of twice-daily ‘exercise snacking’ versus controls. Longer-term studies in larger cohorts are therefore needed to confirm these preliminary findings and determine whether similar resistance ‘exercise snacking’ approaches, and potentially those incorporating additional exercise variety, both upper- and lower-body exercises, and external resistance (e.g., via resistance bands and/or small weights), are effective for improving physical function in older adults.…”

Staying Active While Staying Home: The Use of Physical Activity Technologies During Life Disruptions

“…This demonstrates a need for technology that both supports users through such changes in motivation and facilitates low intensity exercise and breaks from excessive sedentariness, which has been shown to be detrimental to people's well-being and health (47). Prior systems have been shown to effectively motivate breaks from sedentariness through prompting and exercise snacking (51,52), which may be leveraged to support low intensity activity when motivation is low.…”

Adherence to eHealth-Delivered Exercise in Adults with no Specific Health Conditions: A Scoping Review on a Conceptual Challenge

“…Table 1 summarizes the key characteristics in the selected studies. Issuing countries included Australia [ 30 , 31 ], Greece [ 32 ], Spain [ 33 , 34 ], The Netherlands [ 35 ], Germany [ 36 ], United States of America [ 37 , 38 ], United Kingdom [ 28 , 39 ], China [ 40 ] and Taiwan [ 41 ]. A noticeable increase in the number of publications could be seen for 2021 and 2022.…”

“…In general, this review comprised a range of technologies and measures applied to the evaluation of adherence ( Table 1 ). The technologies used included computers [ 32 ], internet or websites [ 31 , 36 , 37 ], Amazon Alexa and internet [ 30 ], video platforms [ 33 , 38 , 39 ], and mobile applications [ 28 , 34 , 35 , 40 , 41 ]. See Figure 2 .…”

“…As is customary in scoping reviews, the nature of the studies reviewed was heterogeneous, not only due to the different technologies used but also in regard to the choice of intervention, delivery, and registry mode, among other things. Most (8 out of 13) of the reviewed articles assessed adherence to exercise programs, protocols or interventions [ 30 , 32 , 33 , 35 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 41 ]; one focused on adherence to changes in PA levels [ 36 ], one focused on adherence to app-delivered prompts [ 28 ], one assessed adherence to a single exercise [ 40 ], one measured adherence to a PA intervention [ 31 ], and one focused on establishing a prediction of adherence based on a previously published pilot study [ 34 ]. In addition to measuring adherence to the exercise program, one of the studies also aimed to assess adherence to exercise volume [ 35 ] and yet another aimed to assess adherence to the exercise training dose [ 38 ].…”