Preliminary Testing of Cafe Move for Primary Prevention of Physical Frailty

Aging

Frailty, Physical function, Strength, Mobility, Balance

This project explores a novel means of health promotion and prevention of age-related physical frailty, which is designed to overcome barriers to access and promote autonomy in managing physical health.

The purpose of this investigation is to field-test a physical function assessment paradigm, designed to inform people of their physical function relative to peers of similar demographic characteristics (e.g., similar age, sex, height, etc.), to promote recommended preventive health behaviors. The physical function assessment paradigm is known as Cafe Move. Our primary research hypothesis is that people will advance along the stages of behavior change (i.e., more likely to participate in recommended preventive healthcare for physical function), after accessing Cafe Move assessments. This study is a single cohort (n=36 participants), double-baseline design, intended primarily to collect pilot data. The results will inform the design of a larger controlled trial. This study will examine the safety, feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of Café Move. Briefly, we will make Café Move available to at-risk populations (i.e., independent-living older adults) via the following approach. First, during a 3-month control phase, we will monitor participants' health behaviors and engagement with preventive health offerings via periodic phone surveys. We will then make Café Move available and subsequently monitor health behaviors and engagement with preventive health offerings. This design will allow us to examine feasibility of the Café Move intervention, to better understand the reach of the program within and across communities, and to determine variance and covariance for the outcome measures of interest.

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United States