UNSTRUCTURED
Background: “Personalised Integrated Care Promoting Quality of Life for Older People” (PROCare4Life) was an EU funded project whose objective is to develop an integrated care Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based system to support the quality of life (QoL) of older people living with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) or Dementia Disease (DD). One module focuses on Physical Activity Recommendations (PAR).
Methods: This article is about the development of PAR based upon the users’ needs and requirements as well as on behavioural change theories. Older adults with DD or PD tested these PAR in a multi-centre trial on the `usage feasibility´ and `technical feasibility´ during 40 days within PROCare4Life Pilot 2. The usage feasibility was rated by patients via the Intermediate Evaluation Questions (IEQs), focusing on the content evaluation on the PAR sets via a five-point Likert scale. These IEQs were related to six sets of daily contents provided to the patients during the 40-day cycle. At the end of the study, the Final Evaluation Questions (FEQs), with the option `Yes´, `No´ or `I don´t know´ appeared in the mobile app, to identify how the PAR sets could be adapted. Functional and operational performance of the technology was assessed to cover the technical feasibility.
Results: The first three PAR sets were rated by more than half of the participants as `excellent´ or `good´. The final sets were rated from one quarter and more as `excellent´ or `good´. Only 13.2% are willing to use the PAR further on, whereas 84.2% indicated the opposite. Results were used to improve the PROCare4Life system for Pilot 3.
Discussion: Feedback regarding the PAR sets was mainly positive. Due to the low digital literacy level of the sample group and technical issues, the result of the trial, showing that patients would not like to use PAR further, is understandable. These results are consistent with the recent findings and relevant to discussions on the right phase to involve large number of participants in the iterative testing of eHealth systems. The PROCare4Life consortium decided that the largest part of the participants should be involved for Pilot 3, when the technology is further developed, and data gathering is better understood.
Conclusions: The study concludes that PROCare4Life is a comprehensive initiative aiming to provide large-scale, accessible integrated care solutions for older adults with DD, PD, and with chronic conditions. The mobile health app's implementation, particularly the PAR, was positively perceived by users, but operational and technical issues need addressing to enhance the overall experience. The future design should focus on flexibility and personalisation to improve the app's effectiveness and user satisfaction.