“A rolling stone gathers no moss!” - The effectiveness of an ICT-based physical activity app on managing everyday life situations among older adults: A randomized controlled trial
Independent living, desirable from multiple perspectives and especially in old age, can be facilitated by physical activity. This study investigates the impact of an ICT-based physical activity app on self-perceived coping with everyday life situations.
We conducted a randomized controlled trial with 100 participants in the intervention group receiving the physical activity app and 129 in the control group without intervention over a period of 16 weeks. We collected data by an online survey at three different time points. The treatment effects were estimated by differences in probabilities among outcome levels within a Difference-in-Difference model structure.
The intervention increased the probability to assess ‘climb up stairs and carry something’ as ‘very easy’ by 8.6 percentage points (95% CI: 2.7, 14.5; p=0.005) and for ‘lift and carry groceries’ by 7.5 percentage points (95% CI: 0.2, 14.8; p=0.043). We did not find any improvement for ‘stretch to the toes’.
Thus, an ICT-based physical activity intervention raise the potential for independent living and serve as a measure preventing care need.
Siegfried Eisenberg joined the IHS in 2021 as a member of the research group Health Economics and Health Policy.
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