Effectiveness of a Mobile Health Exercise Program for Adults With Mobility Disabilities: A Randomised Controlled Trial.
Jereme Wilroy, Yumi Kim, Tapan Mehta and 5 others
PMID 42207491WHAT IT FOUND
Adults with mobility disabilities who used a home-based exercise app with social networking reported more moderate-to-vigorous activity than controls for 24 weeks.
Gains were not sustained at 48 weeks. The added social features and coaching drove the difference, while physical function saw only minor changes.
Key findings
01The intervention group with social networking and optional coaching showed significantly greater increases in self-reported physical activity than the attention control group at 12 and 24 weeks, but these gains were not maintained at 48 weeks.
02Adding social networking and optional coaching to the exercise program resulted in significantly greater increases in total moderate-to-vigorous physical activity compared to the exercise-only group at 12 and 24 weeks.
03Secondary physical health outcomes showed only modest improvements, with no significant between-group differences for the Five Times Sit-to-Stand or Timed Up and Go tests.
STILL TO COME
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What it does not show
The primary outcome relied on self-reported physical activity, which introduces potential recall and social desirability biases. The study population was predominantly female and White, which may limit generalizability to other demographic groups. Adherence to the intervention declined substantially over the 48-week period, making it difficult to assess long-term effectiveness. The trial included participants with multiple disability types, which introduced variability in responsiveness to the intervention. Due to the pandemic, onsite data collection was removed and assessments were conducted remotely, which may have affected the standardization of some measures. While the intervention was designed for scalability, it required substantial staff support, which was not fully evaluated for cost-effectiveness.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The authors declared no competing interests, and the funder had no role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or manuscript preparation.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that this home-based exercise program will lead to lasting improvements in physical function or mobility. The significant gains in self-reported activity were not sustained at 48 weeks, and objective functional tests like the Timed Up and Go showed no significant improvement.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →