A combination of online and in-person training reduced fall accidents in older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic
ABSTRACT
Background:
Fall accidents in older adults is associated with reduced quality of life, personal health issues and earlier deaths. Previous studies have found that both physical and cognitive parameters influence on the risk of falling in older adults. During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown (years 2020-2021) in Denmark, online training was the safest option for training, although its effectiveness was uncertain.
Objective:
The purpose of this stratified, block-randomised trial is to examine the effect of two types of online and in-person training: (i) salsa dance, and (ii) regular fitness circuit, compared with a control group.
Methods:
Seventy-eight older adults (9/69 M/F, 70.4 ±4.4 years, 165.2 ±6.8 cm and 65.7 ±11.9 kg) completed the 6 months training period: dance (n=25), fitness (n=23) and control (n=30). Accidental falls were registered during the follow-up test. Participants in the two training groups were assigned to one-hour training session twice a week for 6 months. Prior to the pandemic, training was administered by a skilled instructor at an activity center in the municipality or at a dance studio. Following the pandemic, dance training was administered through an online meeting platform, whereas fitness training was guided by a video. Adherence to the training was collected weekly. Participants in the control group was encouraged to continue their everyday life.
Results:
Both intervention groups had fewer accidental falls during the 6 moths intervention compared with the control group (control: 9 falls, dance: 4 falls, Fitness: 0 falls, Bonf. Chi-square: p<0.05). In total, adherence to fitness training was 72.6% and dance was 86.9%. However, adherence to the online dance training was 95% (342 dance training hours of possible 360 dance training hours)
Conclusions:
Combination of a 6-months online and in-person training (dance and fitness) reduced the number of accidental falls in older adults. Clinical Trial: NCT03683849
Citation
The author of this paper has made a PDF available, but requires the user to login, or create an account.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.