Comparing Online And In-person Delivery Of An Exercise Program For Older Adults
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many exercise programs to provide participants with online delivery. Online delivery increases accessibility, but their ability to improve perceived and mental health, and functional outcomes in older adults is unknown. Therefore, there is a need to test the efficacy of online delivery compared with in person delivery in older adults. PURPOSE: To compare perceived mental health, and functional outcomes following an online exercise program offered to older adults and compare the benefits with in-person delivery. METHODS: The Zoomers on the Go program is a peer-led exercise program of 12 weeks. The program offers resistance exercise, aerobic activities, balance, and flexibility two times per week to adults aged 50 and above. The main outcome was power as measured by the 30-second chair stand test. Secondary outcomes included dropout, attendance, balance (one leg stance), cardiorespiratory fitness (2-minute step test or 6-minute walk test), perceived health (SF-36), and mental health (Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale - 21 Items). RESULTS: The proportion of dropout was 28.1% and 11.5% in the online and the in-person group respectively (p < 0.001). A total of 74 participants (66.3 ± 7.1 years old) in the online group and 84 participants in the in-person group (67.3 ± 7.2 years old) completed the program. The attendance was 19.6 ± 4.8 sessions for the online group and 16.7 ± 2.9 sessions for the in-person group (p < 0.001) out of 24. Participants in both groups improved significantly their 30 seconds chair stand (online: 14.4 ± 2.7 to 17.0 ± 4.2 vs. in person: 14.1 ± 4.2 to 17.5 ± 5.1; all p < 0.001), cardiorespiratory fitness, and balance without any difference between groups. However, only the in-person group improved general perceived health measured by SF-36 questionnaire. Similarly, only the in-person group significantly reduced the level of stress and depression following the program (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Exercise program delivered online leads to greater attendance and similar improvement in physical function in older adults compared to in person delivery. However, in-person delivery might be needed to improve stress, depression symptoms, and perceived general health in older adults. Funding: Healthy Seniors Pilot Project- Public Health Agency of Canada
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.012 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".