Usability of a two-way personalized mobile trainer system in a community-based exercise program for adults with chronic traumatic brain injury.
Kan Ding, Shannon B Juengst, Stephanie Neaves and 10 others
PMID 35377820WHAT IT FOUND
Twenty adults with chronic traumatic brain injury completed a 3-month home exercise program supported by a mobile tracking app.
They achieved 76% compliance, and 90% rated the program good or excellent, but exercise endurance did not significantly improve.
Key findings
01Participants completed 76% of their assigned exercise duration, with 60% achieving a compliance rate higher than 80%.
02Ninety percent of participants rated the quality of the program as good or excellent, and most felt confident using the tracking app.
03There was no significant difference in exercise endurance between the aerobic training and stretching groups after 3 months.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The sample size was very small (20 participants), limiting the generalizability of the findings. Compliance data were compromised by app instability, with three participants unable to register workouts regularly. The study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have influenced exercise types and locations. The mobile system was only compatible with iPhone and Apple Watch, excluding Android users. The 3-month duration may have been too short to detect changes in exercise endurance, and the 6-minute walk test may not have been sensitive enough to capture small improvements.
Declared interests
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (N.I.H., Extramural). The text does not mention any commercial conflicts of interest or funding from the manufacturers of the Apple devices or the TBICare app.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the mobile app caused the high compliance rates. The study lacked a control group without the app, so it is impossible to separate the effect of the technology from the effect of the structured program and the attention from research staff.