Prime Time of Life, programme or adults aged 30-80

Description

‘Prime Time of Life’ is a free, evidence-based 12-week multimodal exercise and health education programme for adults aged 30-80 years in county Laois. It is suitable for all fitness levels and for those living with and without clinical conditions.
There are two 60-minute exercise classes (onsite or online) and one 15-minute health education class (online) per week. The programme prioritises diversity and inclusion in physical activity specifically for middle-aged adults and older adults of all fitness abilities and clinical conditions in Laois.
We have delivered 5 hybrid programmes to over 375 participants. PTOL overcomes many barriers to PA. It provides a safe, expert-monitored environment to uniquely participate in multimodal PA (aerobic, strength, balance, and flexibility), removes cost barriers thus promoting equality and accessibility, offers flexibility to attend onsite, online, and/or hybrid PA classes to remove weather, travel, and personal barriers to PA participation. PTOL incorporates online, evidence-based, age-specific health education workshops (15-minutes weekly) to enhance participant knowledge and self-efficacy to adopt and maintain health behaviours. These simple and practical workshops are designed and delivered by exercise physiologists on topics specific to MAA and OA e.g., arthritis and special considerations for exercise. PTOL enhances digital, health, and PA literacy of participants, supported by an extensive, innovative on-demand online library containing recorded PA classes, workshops, and additional resources such as a training diary. The library was co-created with participants to meet their specific needs. Participant and technical support is facilitated throughout the PTOL programme. The numerous physical, mental, and other health and wellbeing benefits of PTOL are captured in our two published research papers in the academic journal ‘Physical Activity and Health’.
PTOL provides availability and accessibility to effective, evidence-based, age-specific exercise and health education programmes for MAA and OA that were previously unavailable to this population in Ireland. PTOL is successfully growing each year and has the potential for national rollout.

Aim of Initiative

To increase participants physical ability, overall health an wellbeing.

Who is it aimed at

Our 12-week ‘Prime Time of Life’ programme prioritises diversity and inclusion in physical activity specifically for middle-aged adults and older adults of all fitness abilities and clinical conditions in Laois.
The programme is for adults aged 30-80 years and it is suitable for all fitness levels and for those living with and without clinical conditions.

3 Steps critical to success

1. Teaching middle-aged and older adults how to use zoom to increase accessibility to the online workshops and classes.The health workshops and some exercise classes were delivered live online via zoom. For the middle-aged and older adults who did not previously have this level of technology literacy, we held “how to” classes for them and supported them until there were confidently able to use the platform.
2. Skillset of the delivery team to ensure inclusivity.Our participants were aged 40-80 years with a wide range in functional ability and presence of one or multiple clinical conditions. We designed the warm ups for the exercise classes to ensure they fit the criteria for the most vulnerable participants such as those with cardiovascular diseases so that no one was excluded from participation. We gave three versions of each exercise in every single class to ensure we could cater for individuals who have frailty and multiple clinical conditions through to individuals who were much fitter and stronger.
3. Health education classes.Each week we delivered a 15 minute workshop to the participants to teach them about a topic that was relevant to them e.g. how to judge the correct exercise intensity for you, why and how to strength train, special exercise considerations of a range of clinical conditions that existed in the group. This knowledge is proven to increase self-efficacy to adopt and maintain health behaviours in the long term – physical activity participation in this case.

3 Challenges in Planning / Delivery

1. Teaching middle-aged and older adults how to use zoom.This takes time when participants numbers are large and must be factored into the planning and preparation phase. Doing this is very important to remove a potential barrier to participation for individuals who do not have this type of technology literacy.
2. Being inclusive of individuals of from 40-80 years of age who have a wide range of physical ability and clinical conditions in each training session.The delivery team are clinical exercise physiologists and designed the warm ups, main phase and cool down to take this into account. For every single exercise in each hour long class over the 12-week programme, we gave a choice of 3 versions of the exercise for participants to chose from. Level 1 was for beginners, level 2 for intermediate and level 3 for advanced. We also provided seated options of each exercise for participants who started the programme with frailty.
3. Teaching participants how to judge and communicate their own level of exercise exertion in the online classes.We taught participants about the RPE (rate of perceived exertion) scale. This scale contains a series of numbers that correspond to a feeling of exertion from light exercise through to maximal intensity of effort. We colour coded the scale to make it easy for participants to understand light intensity exercise (green), moderate intensity exercise (orange) and high intensity exercise (red). We provided them with a large green, orange and red card to hold up in class when we did an intensity check and gave feedback based on this. Participants expressed that this was really useful to make sure they did not underwork or overwork themselves in class.

3 Outcomes / Benefits

1. Increased physical ability and health in participants.We tested our participants at the start and end of the programme. They increased their aerobic fitness, lower body strength, upper body strength, flexibility and balance. This significantly increases functional healthy ageing.
2. Increased perception of positive mental health and wellbeing.Participants completed the PROMIS-10 questionnaire before and after the programme. The results showed that everyone increased their perception of positive mental health and wellbeing as a result of the programme.
3. Increased self-efficacy to adopt and maintain health behaviours.The weekly health education workshops increased participants knowledge, skills and self-efficacy to adopt physical activity and maintain this health behaviour in the long term.