Engaging and affordable home exercise environments for people with disabilities

Abstract Rates of physical inactivity among people with physical disability (PWD) are significantly higher than in the general population. PWD have less access to indoor and outdoor physical activity (PA); get less unstructured PA across the day; and their incidence of chronic health conditions are substantially higher than in the general population. Thus, there is a strong and growing need to provide opportunities for PWD to achieve higher levels of regular physical activity. One potential solution for improved exercise access is home exercise equipment, which if integrated with engaging, interactive user experiences such as virtual workout environments, group classes, and social networking, has been proven an effective means for people to participate in a wide range of personal exercise programs. Exercise equipment supporting these functions is widely available for the general public. Unfortunately, although a variety of simple, accessible home-based exercise devices are available, few cost-effective accessible options exist that include these valuable features. In other words, PWD are often denied the health and wellness opportunities available to the general public in the form of interactive, engaging exercise. Vortant Technologies and consortium partner UAB National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD) intend to address this health-related disparity by creating a universal and affordable add-on product to upgrade almost any affordable but non-engaging, non-interactive exercise device. Requiring no special tools or skills to install, this product will enable affordable, accessible exercise in virtual workout environments, social network connectivity, online group exercise participation, and will provide quantitative measurement and feedback of workout intensity and effort. In Phase I, we will expand upon an experimental, patent-pending technology we’ve used to measure generated power and speed on one example exercise device. The team will further develop the prototype to upgrade two simple, commonly-available accessible exercise devices. Connecting to an existing online virtual-workout environment, we will obtain expert therapist feedback, then quantify functionality, usability, potential affordability, and user preferences with a group of end users at UAB.