The effect of video game interaction on walking intensity: Preliminary study of young, older adults and persons post-stroke

Intro: Multiple barriers and facilitators limit physical activity for young and older healthy adults as well as individuals post-stroke. Barriers have found to differ between populations with pain and fatigue as limiting factor for persons post-stroke compared to motivation and time for healthy controls. The use of video games may serve the dual purpose of increasing motivation and distracting participants from pain or fatigue. While exercise intensity during video game play has been fairly well characterized in young adults, less is known about their ability to increase exercise intensity in older adults and people post-stroke. Further most of these games have been studied without coupling them to existing exercise devices. Therefore the purpose of this preliminary study was to determine if the addition of a video game to an already familiar task of treadmill walking increased exercise intensity (measured with HR, cadence and speed) and decreased perceived rate of exertion (RPE) for young, older adults and persons post-stroke. Methods Young (n= 6), older adults (n=5) and individuals post-stroke (n=5) participated in this study. They were randomly assigned to walk and step on a treadmill with and without the Nintendo Wii Fit Free Running video game for three-minute bouts. HR, cadence and speed were measured. Data were analyzed using a 2 × 2 RM Factorial ANOVA to compare young and older adults and older adults and people post-stroke. Paired t-tests corrected for multiple comparisons were used as Post-hoc tests. Results: Young vs Older Adults: There was a significant interaction for HR (F = 5.3; p=.047), Young participants had a higher heart than older adults with the VE. There was a significant difference in cadence (main effect for VE (F = 11.8, p = .007). Both young (t = 2.5, p =.049) and older adults (t= 2.8, p = .048) increased their cadence with the VE. There was a significant difference in speed (F= 7.482, p= .023), younger adults were faster than older adults. Older vs Post-Stroke There were significant differences between groups for HR (F = 19.076, p = .003), cadence (F= 22.8 p=.002) and speed. Conclusion: The addition of video game to treadmill walking increased exercise intensity for young participants (HR and cadence) and older adults (cadence) but not for persons post-stroke.