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ASSESSING OLDER ADULT FITNESS IN COMMUNITY SETTINGS: TECHNOLOGY PILOT

Abstract

Jacob Thomas, Marta Oliviera, Kelsey Weitzel and Trent Guess

University of Missouri, Columbia, MO

Community-based exercise programs (CEP) use fitness assessment tasks to measure participant performance. Instrumented evaluations of these tasks can provide more detailed and objective measurements than visual or time-based rating. The Mizzou Point of Care Assessment System (MPASS) combines a depth camera, force plate, and interface board to measure kinematics, kinetics and reaction time (Fig. 1). MPASS has not been evaluated for use with CEPs. PURPOSE: This pilot study aimed to determine the feasibility of performing CEP fitness assessments using MPASS technology while optimizing MPASS testing battery efficiency to evaluate CEP outcomes. METHODS: 11 assessments were selected based on their clinical use to predict functional outcomes in older adults. Three older adults who were enrolled in CEPs completed 2 repetitions of firm surface Romberg balance test with eyes open and eyes closed (also performed with serial subtraction by sevens for each condition), tandem stance balance, single leg balance, walking, walking while subtracting serially by seven, walk to turn, reaction time, and 5 times sit to stand. Each task was recorded using the MPASS force plate, depth camera, interface board, or some combination of the 3 sensors. A custom Matlab program extracted discrete variables from each task. RESULTS: Based on the ability to complete each task and quality of data produced, 9 tasks were retained for the 8-week pre- and post-CEP testing battery. Tandem stance and single leg balance tasks were too difficult to complete and produced poor data quality. The 9 retained tasks produced more than 200 unique research-based outcome variables for each participant. CONCLUSIONS: Assessing older adult functional fitness with MPASS technology can provide more detailed information associated with key outcomes such as fall risk. Future work will use MPASS measurements from the 9 retained tasks to quantify changes in movement patterns pre- and post-CEP completion in older adults.

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