Cognitive Frailty in Older Adults: The Role of Technology in Physical Activity Enhancement

NCT ID: NCT04692974

Last Updated: 2021-04-19

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

UNKNOWN

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

60 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2020-12-15

Study Completion Date

2021-08-31

Brief Summary

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This study intends to determine if smart watches and mobile phone application prompts can complement physical activity as a preventive intervention by motivating participants to exercise, so as to improve their physical and cognitive outcomes.

The investigators hypothesize that technology will help increase engagement in physical activity for the intervention group relative to the control group and subsequently improve cognitive and physical outcomes.

Detailed Description

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This study aims to explore the role of technology -- in the form of smart watches and mobile phone application -- in physical activity enhancement on cognitive frailty outcomes. Cognitive frailty is defined here as having both physical frailty and cognitive impairment but does not satisfy criteria for Major Neurocognitive Disorder. The investigators postulate that for older adults, such technology will help increase engagement in physical activity with subsequent improvement in cognitive and physical outcomes at follow up. This is with the aim of preventing this particular group from deteriorating to cognitive frailty because of the accompanying increased risk for adverse outcomes and morbidity.

This pilot study will be a randomized control trial with 2 treatment arms. Assessments will be done prior to and following the intervention period. During the period of intervention, the wearable will act as a tracking device and will be paired with a mobile application to issue prompts to the participant when necessary. The independent variable explored in the study is the use of the wearable while the levels of physical and cognitive improvements are the dependent measures. These will be tracked at baseline, 3 months and 6 months. Additionally, the mediating variable measured is the levels of physical activity to ensure that the proposed outcomes are affected through an increased level of physical activity encouraged by the use of the device.

If innovations like technology and the role of self-management proves efficacious, the future of healthcare in the context of a rapidly aging population will be more sustainable. Furthermore, this supporting role of technology in positive behavioral modification amongst older adults can have a multitude of applications in subsequent healthcare interventions.

Conditions

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Mild Cognitive Impairment Frailty

Study Design

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Allocation Method

RANDOMIZED

Intervention Model

PARALLEL

Intervention and control group design
Primary Study Purpose

PREVENTION

Blinding Strategy

DOUBLE

Investigators Outcome Assessors
Randomization will be carried out by a research assistant not involved in the study.

The assessors will be blind to the treatment assignment of the participant when administering the questionnaires.

Study Groups

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Intervention Group

Participants in the intervention group will be given the wearables which they will use together with the accompanying mobile application for the period of the study (6 months). During the period of intervention, the wearable will track the physical activity of the older adults via the number of steps taken and number of hours of moderate physical work (based on heart rate). Heart rate and steps will be tracked whenever participants are wearing the watch, which is when they are awake. The watch is to be charged every night when they are sleeping. Participants will have to log down their physical activity by activating the physical activity tracker either on the watch or on the mobile application. If they did not hit the required level of physical activity, they will be sent a notification prompt through the mobile application with details of nearby workout locations as recommendation.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Mobile phone application and smart watch

Intervention Type DEVICE

Mobile phone application prompts

Control Group

For the control group, they will wear the wearables as a tracking device for the period of the study (6 months). No prompts will be given and the mobile application will only be installed but not used for this group.

Group Type NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

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Mobile phone application and smart watch

Mobile phone application prompts

Intervention Type DEVICE

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* Older adults aged 60 to 85 years

Exclusion Criteria

* Engages in vigorous exercises as determined by having more than 0 minutes of vigorous exercise on the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ).
* Has medical contraindications for exercising, including but not limited to: physical disabilities or heart conditions where the primary doctor disallows exercising at moderate intensity.
* Does not own an Android phone which can support at least a version 6.0 Operating System
Minimum Eligible Age

60 Years

Maximum Eligible Age

85 Years

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Sponsors

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Sengkang General Hospital

OTHER

Sponsor Role collaborator

National University of Singapore

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Rathi Mahendran

Associate Professor, Senior Consultant Psychiatrist, Principal Investigator

Responsibility Role PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

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Rathi Mahendran, MMed (Psych)

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

National University of Singapore

Locations

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Hannah Senior Activity Center

Singapore, , Singapore

Site Status RECRUITING

Countries

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Singapore

Central Contacts

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Savannah Siew, BSc (Hons)

Role: CONTACT

Rathi Mahendran, MMed (Psych)

Role: CONTACT

Facility Contacts

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Savannah Siew, BSc (Hons)

Role: primary

References

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Kiah Hui Siew S, Yu J, Teo TL, Chua KC, Mahendran R, Rawtaer I. Technology and physical activity for preventing cognitive and physical decline in older adults: Protocol of a pilot RCT. PLoS One. 2024 Feb 23;19(2):e0293340. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0293340. eCollection 2024.

Reference Type DERIVED
PMID: 38394113 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

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H-20-038

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id

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