Department of Community Health Sciences, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
College of Kinesiology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada.
BMC Geriatr. 2021 Jan 9;21(1):33. doi: 10.1186/s12877-020-01949-2.
Training balance through exercise is an effective strategy to reduce falls in community-dwelling older adults. Evidence-based fall prevention exercise recommendations have been proposed, specifying that exercise programs should: (1) provide a high challenge to balance, (2) be offered for a least three hours per week, (3) be provided on an ongoing basis. Community exercise programs have the potential to deliver effective fall prevention exercise; however, current design characteristics and whether they include the recommendations is not known. This study described design characteristics of fall prevention community exercise programs for older adults (50 years and older) across Canada, and explored whether these programs included the three evidence-based exercise recommendations.
Instructors of fall prevention community exercise programs completed electronic self-report questionnaires following a modified Dillman recruitment approach. Questions explored program characteristics, exercise content, target population, and program and instructor demographic information. Using a previously developed coding scheme based on recommendations, exercises were coded for balance challenge.
One hundred fourty completed eligible questionnaires were analyzed (74% response rate). One hundred thirty-three programs (95%) included the challenge recommendation by prescribing mostly moderate or high challenge balance exercises, 16 programs (11%) included at least three hours of exercise a week, and 59 programs (42%) were offered on an ongoing basis. Eight programs (6%) included all three recommendations.
Most programs included at least one recommendation for effective fall prevention exercise. Future studies should examine organizational barriers and facilitators to incorporating evidence-based exercise recommendations and explore the use of mixed home/in-class strategies to include the recommendations.
通过锻炼来训练平衡能力是减少社区居住的老年人跌倒的有效策略。已经提出了基于证据的预防跌倒锻炼建议，规定锻炼计划应：（1）对平衡能力提出高挑战，（2）每周至少进行三小时，（3）持续进行。社区锻炼计划有潜力提供有效的预防跌倒锻炼；然而，目前的设计特点以及它们是否包含这些建议尚不清楚。本研究描述了加拿大各地针对老年人（50 岁及以上）的预防跌倒社区锻炼计划的设计特点，并探讨了这些计划是否包含这三项基于证据的锻炼建议。
预防跌倒社区锻炼计划的指导员按照修改后的 Dillman 招募方法完成了电子自我报告问卷。问题探讨了计划特点、锻炼内容、目标人群以及计划和指导员的人口统计信息。使用基于建议制定的先前开发的编码方案，根据平衡挑战对锻炼进行编码。
分析了 140 份符合条件的已完成问卷（74%的回复率）。133 个计划（95%）通过规定大多数中等到高度挑战的平衡练习来包含挑战建议，16 个计划（11%）每周至少进行三小时的锻炼，59 个计划（42%）持续提供。8 个计划（6%）包含了所有三项建议。
大多数计划至少包含一项有效的预防跌倒锻炼建议。未来的研究应研究纳入基于证据的锻炼建议的组织障碍和促进因素，并探讨混合家庭/课堂策略的使用，以纳入这些建议。
