Delivery of home-based exercise interventions in older adults facilitated by Amazon Alexa: A 12-week feasibility trial

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Title

Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging

Publisher

Springer

School

School of Medical and Health Sciences / Institute for Nutrition Research

RAS ID

39777

Funders

National Health and Medical Research Council

RD Wright Biomedical Career Development Fellowship

Deakin University

Nutrition Seed Grant

Grant Number

NHMRC Number : GNT1174886

Comments

Jansons, P., Dalla Via, J., Daly, R. M., Fyfe, J. J., Gvozdenko, E., & Scott, D. (2022). Delivery of home-based exercise interventions in older adults facilitated by Amazon Alexa: A 12-week feasibility trial. The Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging, 26(1), 96-102.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12603-021-1717-0

Abstract

Objectives:

To evaluate the feasibility of using voice-controlled intelligent personal assistants (VIPAs) to remotely deliver and monitor an individually-tailored, home-based exercise program to older adults living independently and alone.

Design:

12-week, prospective single-arm feasibility study.

Setting:

Community residences.

Participants:

15 adults aged 60 to 89 years living alone.

Intervention:

All participants were prescribed home-based muscle strengthening, weight-bearing impact and balance exercises, increasing from two to four 10-minute sessions per day over 12 weeks. Sessions were delivered using VIPAs (Amazon Alexa Echo Show 5; “Alexa”) and a novel software program (“Buddy Link”). The program was individualized by an exercise physiologist based on participant voice responses to Alexa questions.

Measurements:

Study outcomes were feasibility (rate of retention, adherence, and adverse events), usability (System Usability Scale) and changes to quality of life (European Quality of Life Scale), and lower-extremity function (30 second sit-to-stand test).

Results:

All 15 participants (mean age, 70.3 years) completed the study (retention 100%). Mean adherence to the exercise program was 115% (i.e., collectively all participants were prescribed 8640 exercises but completed 9944 exercises) with no adverse events reported to be related to the intervention and usability scored as above average (75/100). Other outcomes did not significantly change across the 12-week follow-up (all P > 0.05).

Conclusions:

In this feasibility study of community-dwelling older adults living alone, a home-based exercise program delivered and monitored remotely by an exercise physiologist using VIPAs was safe and feasible.

DOI

10.1007/s12603-021-1717-0

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