Frailty in a Frailty Prevention Program Participants During COVID-19 pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Japanese Study

Objective Health conditions of older adults have deteriorated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Few studies have reported on the frailty of this group of people. The study aimed to investigate physical and social frailty in participants in a frailty prevention program during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Japan from January 2021. Further, 863 participants of a frailty prevention program completed the survey. The frequency of program attendance in 2020, physical frailty (5-item frailty screening index), social frailty（diagnostic criteria of social frailty in NCGG-SGS), and depression (GDS-5) were assessed. A related factor of physical frailty was analyzed statistically by Welch's t test and the Chi-squared test. Results The study participants’ mean age, proportion of women, and mean enrollment period in program were 86.8±4.9, 96.3%, 64.3±48.6 months, respectively. The program attendance ratio was 83.4% from January to March, 54.5% from April to June, 79.8% from July to September, and 80.0% from October to December. The prevalence of physical frailty was 20.3% non-frailty, 63.7% pre-frailty, and 15.6% frailty. The prevalence of social frailty was 10.0% non-frailty, 28.6% social pre-frailty, 61.8% social frailty, and the prevalence of depression was 36.8%. Participants with physical frailty were significantly older and showed higher prevalence of social frailty and depression, displaying significantly lower attendance program than non-frailty and pre-frailty older adults (p<0.05). Conclusions The study results suggest that more than half of the participants of a frailty prevention program have social frailty and a high risk of physical frailty due to COVID-19.

Comparison of simple moving average and arima timeseries forecasting models on independent historic data and extrapolating echo program attendance

Background: The Extension of Community Healthcare Outcome program (ECHO) is an educational and training telemedicine service that provides voluntary case-based learning opportunities for healthcare professionals. Prediction of participant attendance will be useful to improve the sessions with early requirements to maximize the benefits. Usually, the most sophisticated Auto Regressive models are used for forecasting, when the data contains observation with multiple variables and dependencies, Simple Moving Average (SMA) models are used less in such conditions. In this study we want to examine the accuracy and reliability of Moving Average models compared with Auto Regressive models. The objective of this work is to develop an accurate forecasting model for ECHO program attendance by considering non-stationary, independent organizational data. Methods: The study analyzed 2015-2019 Show Me ECHO attendance data from the Missouri Telehealth Network (MTN). The first step; trained and tested both SMA and ARIMA predictive models without any dependent variables and evaluated both models by measuring error values. The second step; used the best model to forecast ECHO attendance for years 2020 - 2025. Results: The SMA model was better than the ARIMA model for independent data with lower error values MAE - 38.9, MSE - 2552.15, MAPE - 32.9 percent, p- value: 3.36E-28, and higher R - square: 87 percent. Where ARIMA model was with higher error values MAE - 61.8, MSE - 7198.88, MAPE - 37.7 percent, p- value: 6.25E-22, and lower R - square: 80 percent. Conclusion: Simple Moving Average (SMA) is more accurate than Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) in forecasting future ECHO program attendance. Based on prediction; In 2019, the attendance range was 250-550, where in 2025 it got increased to 530-1170; shows that telehealth attendance will be doubled in th

A Sense of Connection: Examining Social Identity and Adherence to a School-Based Exercise Club

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between social identity and adherence in the context of a school-based, 8-week structured group exercise program. Methods: Secondary students (N = 116; Mage = 15.52 years) from 10 newly formed school-based exercise clubs reported social identity perceptions specific to their exercise group, which were used to predict attendance and intentions to return to the club in the future. Results: Controlling for sex and grade level, the results of hierarchical regression analysis revealed that exercise group social identity was significantly positively related to program attendance (ΔR2 = .09, p < .01). A positive relationship was also found between exercise group social identity and intentions to return to the exercise club in the future, while also controlling for sex, grade level, and program attendance (ΔR2 = .05, p < .05). Discussion/Conclusion: The findings suggest that stronger exercise group social identity in the form of ingroup ties is associated with greater attendance and intention to return to the school-based exercise club among secondary school students.

Participants’ Views on Lifestyle Intervention Program Enhancing Long-Term Health-Related Behaviors Improvement among Prehypertension and/or Prediabetes Mellitus Older Adults: A Qualitative Study Examined in Thailand at Health Promoting Hospitals

This study aimed to investigate the view of prediabetes and prehypertension elderly patients living around temple on long-term self-management in proficient way underneath the lifestyle intervention program based on both focus-group discussion and In-depth interview methods to fill the gap in partially successful intervention. 62 participants were selected from 220 participants of the quantitative published study by 2 researchers. The triangulation method was used to put great emphasis on the consistency and the credibility of the results. Almost all of the participants had benefited from the program regarding proper foods, suitable exercise and an inspiration of lifestyle modification. They made changes of eating behavior and exercise behavior during program attendance, however, after the program had finished, they had minimal concern to take care of themselves. Nonetheless, more than half of them demonstrated some health-related behaviors changes due to they gave the value of the suggestion in different aspects. Moreover, high-frequency program attendance was not related to blood results improvement. The knowledge obtained from program intervention together with adequate contact between the patient and the program staff, personal problems solving, personal attitude, practice and acceptable played a key role for long-term lifestyle modification and completely successful intervention.