BACKGROUND
Older adults have a high risk of falling, which leads to severe health and psychological consequences and can induce fear of falling. Rehabilitation programmes using exergames to prevent falls are increasingly explored. Medimoov is a movement-based patient-personalised exergame for rehabilitation in older adults. A preliminary study showed that its use may influence functional ability and motivation. Most existing studies evaluating the use of exergames do not involve an appropriate control group and do not focus on patient-personalised exergames.
OBJECTIVE
Thus, this study aims to evaluate the effects of Medimoov on falling risk and fear of falling in older adults compared with standard psychomotor rehabilitation.
METHODS
This study is an open, randomised controlled trial in parallel groups with blind data collection for the evaluation criterion. Twenty-five older adults per group will be recruited. The selection criteria will be: 1) 65 years of age or older, 2) ability to answer a questionnaire, 3) ability to stand in a bipedal position for at least 1 minute, 4) a score 13 or greater on the Short Fall Efficacy Scale and 5) to be in stable medical condition. Patients will be randomly allocated to two groups, as follows: the intervention group have bi-weekly sessions with Medimoov, the control group will follow the usual rehabilitation programme (bi-weekly psychomotor therapy sessions). Evaluations will be made before the intervention, after 4 weeks of intervention, and at the end of the intervention (after 8 weeks) and will focus on (1) risk of fall, (2) fear of falling and (3) cognitive evaluations. Physical activity outside the session will also be assessed by actimetry. The outcome assessment will be performed according intention-to-treat analysis.
RESULTS
N/A
CONCLUSIONS
This study will allow us to evaluate the effect of psychomotor rehabilitation using the Medimoov exergame platform on the fear of falling and risk of falling. If the effects of the Medimoov-assisted rehabilitation programme are shown to be effective for preventing falls and alleviating fear of falling, this pilot study will be the basis for larger trials.
CLINICALTRIAL
ClinicalTrials registration number: NCT04134988 (2019/10/22) https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04134988.
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