The objective of this study was to perform a systematic review on training outcomes influencing physical fitness, activity of daily living performance, and quality-of-life in institutionalized older people. We reviewed 27 studies on older people (age, ≥70 yrs) in long-term care facilities and nursing homes. Our ultimate goal was to propose criteria for an evidence-based exercise protocol aimed at improving physical fitness, activity of daily living performance, and quality-of-life of frail institutionalized older people. The interventions, described in the reviewed studies that showed strong or very strong effect sizes were used to form an exercise prescription. The conclusion is that there is firm evidence for training effects on physical fitness, functional performance, activity of daily living performance, and quality-of-life. The training should contain a combination of progressive resistance training, balance training, and functional training. The proposed intensity is moderate to high, assessed on a 0-10 scale for muscle strengthening activities. The training frequency was three times a week, and the total duration was at least 10 wks. PMID:20881587 doi: 10.1097/PHM.0b013e3181f703ef
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If being physically fit is of the outmost importance, then what can be said about the fitness of persons with severe or profound intellectual, visual and motor disabilities? Exactly how could their level of physical fitness be measured? Formulated differently, if a person sees little to nothing and in addition has little comprehension of its immediate environment, then how should one go about testing? How motivated would this person be to be subjected to tests and to perform the tasks as well as possible?' Finding an answer to these questions formed the main incentive for this research. The important concrete results of this research are feasible, reliable, and valid tests for assessing physical fitness of persons with severe or profound intellectual and multiple disabilities, which can be directly implemented into the daily practice.
This paper describes a participatory design-oriented study of an ambient assisted living system for monitoring the daily activities of elderly residents. The work presented addresses these questions 1) What daily activities the elderly participants like to be monitored, 2) With whom they would want to share this monitored data and 3) How a monitoring system for the elderly should be designed. For this purpose, this paper discusses the study results and participatory design techniques used to exemplify and understand desired ambient-assisted living scenarios and information sharing needs. Particularly, an interactive dollhouse is presented as a method for including the elderly in the design and requirements gathering process for residential monitoring. The study results indicate the importance of exemplifying ambient-assisted living scenarios to involve the elderly and so to increase acceptance and utility of such systems. The preliminary studies presented show that the participants were willing to have most of their daily activities monitored. However, they mostly wanted to keep control over their own data and share this information with medical specialists and particularly not with their fellow elderly neighbours.
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Although cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is being recognized as an important marker of health and functioning, it is currently not routinely assessed in daily clinical practice. There is an urgent need for a simple and feasible exercise test that can validly and reliably estimate an individual’s CRF. The Steep Ramp Test (SRT) is such a practical short-time exercise test (work rate increments of 25 W/10 seconds, so the test phase will only take up to 4 minutes) on a cycle ergometer, that does not require expensive equipment or specialized knowledge, and has been found able to validly and reliably estimate an individual’s CRF. Although the SRT is already frequently used in the Netherlands to evaluate CRF, sex- and age-specific reference values for adults and elderly are lacking thus far, which seriously limits the interpretation of test results.
