Implications of a National Health Promotion Program for Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Pilot Study

Implications of a National Health Promotion Program for Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Pilot Study

In 2017, the Health Promotion Administration implemented the Community Elderly Health Promotion Program, which offered exercise intervention and healthy aging and cognitive function training for healthy and prefrail older adults. This program included older adults residing in Tainan, Taiwan to explore the implications of the health promotion program for community-dwelling older adults. The program included 36 healthy and prefrail individuals, aged >55 years. The intervention was administered twice a week for 8 weeks. Functional fitness and physical activity were assessed.
After the intervention, the participants exhibited significant improvement in functional fitness, which is measured in terms of upper body flexibility (P < 0.001), lower body flexibility (P = 0.042), upper body strength (P < 0.001), lower body strength (P < 0.001), static balance (P < 0.001), cardiovascular endurance (P = 0.001) and grip strength (P < 0.001). Physical activity levels also significantly increased after the intervention (P = 0.045). These results show that the national health promotion program improved functional fitness and physical activity for older adults. A total of 229 health promotion courses are currently available in Taiwan. If other courses yield similar outcomes, many older adults can benefit from the program.