High rates of sedentary behaviors in older adults can lead to poor health outcomes. However, new technologies, namely exercise-based videogames ("exergames"), may provide ways of stimulating uptake and ongoing participation in physical activities. Older adults' perceptions of the use of technology to improve health are not known.
The study aimed to determine use and perceptions of technology before and after using a 5-week exergame.
Focus groups determined habitual use of technology and the participant's perceptions of technology to assist with health and physical activity. Surveys were developed to quantitatively measure these perceptions and were administered before and after a 5-week intervention. The intervention was an exergame that focused on postural balance ("Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012"). Games scores, rates of game participation, and enjoyment were also recorded.
A total of 24 healthy participants aged between 55 and 82 years (mean 70, SD 6 years) indicated that after the intervention there was an increased awareness that technology (in the form of exergames) can assist with maintaining physical activity (P<.001). High levels of enjoyment (Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale [PACES-8] score mean 53.0, SE 0.7) and participation rates over the whole study (83%-100%) were recorded.
Older adults' have low perception of the use of technology for improving health outcomes until after exposure to exergames. Technology, in the form of enjoyable exergames, may be useful for improving participation in physical activity that is relevant for older adults.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 7. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 10 January 2016.
All research outputs
#5,688,706
of 27,473,912 outputs
Outputs from JMIR Serious Games
#124
of 625 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#80,895
of 400,981 outputs
Outputs of similar age from JMIR Serious Games
#2
of 2 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 27,473,912 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 79th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 625 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.4. This one has done well, scoring higher than 80% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 400,981 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 79% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 2 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one.
