Using Physical Activity to Promote Health and Wellness in Older Age: Lessons Learnt in Three Continents
Creators: name: Stathi, Afroditi
name: Tiedemann, Anne
name: Tully, Mark
Publisher: name: The Health & Fitness Journal of Canada
Year: 2022

description: Purpose: The symposium will develop ideas about future methods for designing and evaluating active ageing interventions using a more holistic, inclusive, and context-sensitive approach. Description: This symposium will compare, contrast and deconstruct the experiences of active ageing experts from the USA, Australia and UK of conducting randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of physical activity (PA) interventions to maximise health and wellness in older adults from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Limitations of current trial methods and new, more holistic approaches will be discussed. Chair: Assoc Prof Afroditi Stathi, University of Birmingham, UK: “Introduction to Symposium”. The Chair will highlight gaps in the evidence on the community-based promotion of active ageing. She will outline the problems with dealing with complexity of people, interventions and contextual influences when evaluating such initiatives. Presenter 1: Assoc Prof Anne Tiedemann, University of Sydney, AUS: “Yoga-based Exercise for Promoting Health in Older Age: Project Results &amp; Future Directions”. This presentation outlines a culturally and contextually sensitive program of research that led to the first RCT (n=560) internationally to test the effect of a yoga-based exercise program (Successful AGEing (SAGE)) for reducing falls in older people. It will discuss the potential for different PA modes to support holistic wellness outcomes. Presenter 2: Assoc Prof Afroditi Stathi, University of Birmingham, UK: “Using Diverse Measures and Process Evaluation to Develop a More Holistic Account of Outcomes in a Group-Based Active Ageing Intervention”. The findings of the REtirement in ACTion (REACT) study, the UK’s first large-scale (n=777), multi-centre, pragmatic RCT targeting mobility disability will be presented for the first time. REACT evaluates a “real-world” version of the LIFE intervention. Using mixed-methods process evaluation, we will unpick how the health and wellness effects vary between people and provide recommendations for maximising reach and effectiveness in the real world. Presenter 3: Professor, Mark Tully (Ulster University): "Older adults’ experiences of a Multi-Country ‘SITLESS’ Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour Intervention." This SITLESS study was a multi-country randomized controlled trial across Europe. This presentation will report on the findings from qualitative research exploring the implementation and contextual aspects of the intervention in relation to the mechanisms of impact and to explore the perceived effects. In particular, we identified that when designing and implementing interventions for older adults, components should focus on enhancing social interaction, enjoyment and continuity to successfully promote sustained behaviour change. Results: Key findings include the need to account for complexity of (a) outcomes (especially in physical activity and the way it interacts with physical function); (b) people (via intensive stakeholder involvement and in-depth process evaluation); (c) interventions and (d) social and community-level systems operating around the intervention and around the individual (which are as yet largely unaddressed). A set of ideas from the presenters on ways to adapt our intervention development and evaluation methods going forward will be presented for discussion with the audience. Conclusions: Whilst methods for active ageing promotion make advances, understanding implementation processes and complexities and influences around these programs will help us increase reach and effectiveness.
description: The Health &amp; Fitness Journal of Canada, Vol. 14 No. 3 (2021): Proceedings from the 8th International Society for Physical Activity and Health Congress