A wearable-enhanced fitness program for older adults, combining fitness trackers and gamification elements: the pilot study fMOOC@Home

Purpose Besides nutrition, physical activity is one of the most important prerequisites for healthy aging. The public funded R&D project fMOOC (Fitness MOOC—interaction of older adults with wearable fitness trackers in a Massive Open Online Course), aimed at encouraging older adults to increase their physical activity with the help of a senior-friendly wearable enhanced training system composed of a smartphone training-app coupled with an activity-tracking device. Methods In a pilot study, we evaluated the training system in the home environment of older adults—20 older adults, used the smartphone app and the activity-tracking device for 4 weeks. We investigated the usability of the system using validated usability tests and asked the participants about use patterns and acceptance. We also examined the effectiveness of the training by measuring changes in strength, physical activity, balancing ability and endurance. Results The analysis of the data shows that the majority of the participants (60%) engaged in the training program on a regular basis. Among the various technical components of the training program, the fitness tracking devices were used most frequently (90% on a daily basis). An interesting result is that even within a short training period of 4 weeks, and within the small sample of 20 participants, the data showed significant health improvements regarding the duration of daily physical activity ( T (19) = − 2.274; p < 0.05) and the balancing ability ( T (19) = − 3.048; p < 0.01). Conclusion A wearable-enhanced fitness training program, can motivate older adults to be more physically active.