Evidence-Based Recommendations for Exercise in Older Adults

Because a considerable amount of effort has been directed toward developing the capability to systematically generate evidence-based recommendations for exercise in older adults, we feel strongly that an equally systematic approach to dissemination of these recommendations now needs to be developed, implemented and evaluated. To this end, we propose the logical next step, to develop methods and procedures that help to assure that health practitioners and older adults are able to access a set of evidence based recommendations directed at increasing participation in regular physical activity. Therefore, the proposed project has two target audiences, health care practitioners and older adults themselves. The overall goal of the proposed project is to develop programs and/or tools that encourage physicians, other members of the health care team and older adults to effectively utilize evidence based recommendations for exercise. The proposed project weeks to study and systematically evaluate preferred mechanisms and translation processes among both providers and consumers (e.g. changes in attitudes and behaviors, clinical practice or health condition) resulting from the dissemination of a set of evidence based recommendations for exercise. The proposed project will utilize recently compiled evidence-based recommendations for exercise in older adults as the health promotion/disease prevention model.