JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Exercise prescription is highly recommended but often poorly implemented as clinicians lack the necessary knowledge and skills, and participants have low adherence due to design defects, e.g. prescriptions fail to take individual willingness, the appeal of exercise, and complex physical condition into account. Intelligent personalized prescription is worth exploring.

Objective:

The aim of this study was to investigate whether a year-long cloud platform-based and intelligent personalized exercise prescription intervention improved middle-aged and elderly Chinese community dwellers’ health outcomes.

Methods:

A total of 177 participants (52–85 years, mean age=67.93±7.05 years) were recruited from two Chinese community health service centers in Anhui province. The exercise intervention was delivered over 12 months, using a single group pretest-posttest design. After assessing participants’ physical activity, health-related lifestyle, history of chronic diseases and drug use, family history of disease and cardiovascular function, body composition, bone mineral density, and physical fitness through an e-health promotion system, participants were assigned to one type of personalized exercise prescription by this system (healthcare mode or scientific fitness mode). Paired t-tests were used for the analysis.

Results:

A total of 97 participants were classified into the healthcare mode, and the remaining individuals (80) were assigned to the scientific fitness mode. Significant changes in heart rate (mean difference (MD): 2.97, 95% CI: 1.1–4.84, P=.002), subendocardial viability ratio (MD: −0.13, CI: −1.19 to −0.63, P<.0001), weight (MD: 0.99, CI: 0.29–1.69, P=.006), BMI (MD: 0.38, CI: 0.11–0.64, P=.006), body fat rate (MD: 0.88, CI: 0.24–1.51, P=.007), fat mass (MD: 0.92, CI: 0.33–1.53, P=.003), and baPWV (MD: −0.72, CI: −1.17 to −0.27, P=.002) were observed among participants with healthcare-mode exercise prescriptions at the 12-month post-intervention versus the baseline assessment, while no changes in systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, muscle mass, bone mineral density, T-value, Z-value, balance and ability were discerned. The results showed functional degradation in physical fitness of both groups, including handgrip strength (healthcare mode: MD=4.41 vs scientific fitness mode: MD=3.11), vital capacity (healthcare mode: MD=261.99 vs scientific fitness mode: MD=250.78) and agility (healthcare mode: MD=−0.35 vs scientific fitness mode: MD=−0.39) with P<.0001, except handgrip strength in scientific fitness mode (P=.002). There were no significant differences in other parameters among participants with scientific fitness-mode exercise prescriptions.

Conclusions:

The observations suggest that our exercise prescription intervention program might promote certain health outcomes in middle-aged and elderly Chinese community dwellers, yet we are unable to recommend such a program given existing limitations. Future randomized control trials with diverse samples are warranted to confirm our findings.