Volunteer-led online group exercise for community-dwelling older people: a feasibility and acceptability study.

BACKGROUND: Despite the clear benefits of physical activity in healthy ageing, engagement in regular physical activity among community-dwelling older adults remains low, with common barriers including exertional discomfort, concerns with falling, and access difficulties. The recent rise of the use of technology and the internet among older adults presents an opportunity to engage with older people online to promote increased physical activity. This study aims to determine the feasibility and acceptability of training volunteers to deliver online group exercises for older adults attending community social clubs. METHODS: This was a pre-post mixed-methods study. Older adults aged ≥ 65 years attending community social clubs who provided written consent and were not actively participating in exercise classes took part in the feasibility study. Older adults, volunteers, and staff were interviewed to determine the acceptability of the intervention. The intervention was a once weekly volunteer-led online group seated strength exercises using resistance bands. The duration of the intervention was 6 months. The primary outcome measures were the feasibility of the intervention (determined by the number of volunteers recruited, trained, and retained, participant recruitment and intervention adherence) and its acceptability to key stakeholders. Secondary outcome measures included physical activity levels (Community Health Model Activities Programme for Seniors (CHAMPS) questionnaire), modified Barthel Index, Health-related quality of life (EQ-5D-5L), frailty (PRISMA-7) and sarcopenia (SARC-F), at baseline and 6 months. RESULTS: Nineteen volunteers were recruited, 15 (78.9%) completed training and 9 (47.3%) were retained after 1 year (mean age 68 years). Thirty older adults (mean age 77 years, 27 female) participated, attending 54% (IQR 37-67) of exercise sessions. Participants had no significant changes in secondary outcome measures, with a trend towards improvement in physical activity levels (physical activity in minutes per week at baseline was 1770 min, and 1909 min at six months, p = 0.13). Twenty volunteers, older adults, and staff were interviewed and found the intervention acceptable. The seated exercises were perceived as safe, manageable, and enjoyable. CONCLUSIONS: Trained volunteers can safely deliver online group exercise for community-dwelling older adults which was acceptable to older adults, volunteers, and club staff. TRIALS REGISTRATION: NCT04672200.

Trachoma in the Northern Territory of Australia, 1940-1986.

All known surveys of the prevalence of trachoma in the Northern Territory from 1940 to the present were reviewed. The crude (overall) prevalence rates for trachoma were calculated from the results of those surveys which involved whole Aboriginal communities. When three-or-more surveys had been conducted in a community over a period of 10 years or more, the results were plotted against the year of the survey. In most communities in the north of the Northern Territory (the "Top End"), the prevalence of trachoma appeared to have increased dramatically between 1950 and 1955 and then to have declined substantially at a rate of 2% per annum. This fall occurred before the mass-treatment programmes of the late 1970s and its most likely explanation is the improvement in living conditions. In five- to 10-years' time, trachoma may have disappeared completely from these communities. In most Central Australian communities, the prevalence of trachoma appears to have been constant or even to have increased. If social conditions were to begin to improve in Central Australian communities this year, and if those communities were to show the same response rates as in the Top End communities, then it could be well into the next century before the prevalence of trachoma there falls to the low rates of the Top End. This should be an impetus for social change in Central Australia; however, there might be a case for medically based control programmes in Central Australia, at least in the short term.