Background: The benefits of physical activity are well documented, but scalable programs to promote activity are needed. Interventions that assign tailored and dynamically adjusting goals could effect significant increases in physical activity but have not yet been implemented at scale.
Objective: Our aim was to examine the effectiveness of an open access, Internet-based walking program that assigns daily step goals tailored to each participant.
Methods: A two-arm, pragmatic randomized controlled trial compared the intervention to no treatment. Participants were recruited from a workplace setting and randomized to a no-treatment control (n=133) or to treatment (n=132). Treatment participants received a free wireless activity tracker and enrolled in the walking program, Walkadoo. Assessments were fully automated: activity tracker recorded primary outcomes (steps) without intervention by the participant or investigators. The two arms were compared on change in steps per day from baseline to follow-up (after 6 weeks of treatment) using a two-tailed independent samples t test.
Results: Participants (N=265) were 66.0% (175/265) female with an average age of 39.9 years. Over half of the participants (142/265, 53.6%) were sedentary (<5000 steps/day) and 44.9% (119/265) were low to somewhat active (5000-9999 steps/day). The intervention group significantly increased their steps by 970 steps/day over control (P<.001), with treatment effects observed in sedentary (P=.04) and low-to-somewhat active (P=.004) participants alike.
Conclusions: The program is effective in increasing daily steps. Participants benefited from the program regardless of their initial activity level. A tailored, adaptive approach using wireless activity trackers is realistically implementable and scalable.
Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT02229409, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02229409 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6eiWCvBYe).
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http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/jmir.5295 | DOI Listing |
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First Department of Orthopedic Surgery, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Attikon University General Hospital, 12462 Athens, Greece.
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January 2025
Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Institutet,171 76 Stockholm, Sweden.
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View Article and Find Full Text PDFGeriatrics (Basel)
January 2025
Well-Move Research Group, Galicia Sur Health Research Institute (IIS Galicia Sur), Servicio Galego de Saúde-Universidade de Vigo, 36310 Vigo, Spain.
In this study, the objective is to analyze the efficacy of different aquatic physical exercise programs in the treatment of osteoarthritis in older people. The systematic review was conducted until April 2024 and updated in November 2024 in five electronic databases. Randomized controlled studies in people over 60 years of age with a diagnosis of osteoarthritis were included.
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