SuPA Mobility: Supporting Physical Activity for Older Adults with Limited Mobility

Health Research BC is providing match funds for the Canadian Training Platform for Trial Leveraging Existing Networks (CAN-TAP-TALENT) Post-Doctoral Fellowship Award 2023. 

Dr. Jordyn Rice, PT, DPT, PhD is a post-doctoral fellow in the Aging, Mobility, and Cognitive Health Lab, working under the supervision of Professor Teresa Liu-Ambrose, Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Healthy Aging.  

The SuPA Mobility Trial is a Vancouver based randomized controlled trial using a health coaching intervention aimed to promote physical activity in older adults with limited mobility.  

As individuals age​,​ they have a greater risk of limited mobility, or difficulty in getting around safely in one’s environment. Limited mobility is linked to illness, disease, and decreased quality of life in older adults. Supervised group exercise that increases physical activity by only 6 minutes per day has been shown to have beneficial effects on mobility. However, supervised exercise programs may be difficult to accomplish on a large scale due to the significant resources needed to manage such programs.   

This research will evaluate: 1) the effectiveness of a 26-week health coaching program to  increase physical activity in older adults with limited mobility by at least 50 minutes per week​;​​ and 2) differences between health coaching compared to a control group on overall activity level, walking speed, cognition or thinking ability, mood, and quality of life.    

Increasing physical activity through the use of health coaching has the potential to improve mobility ​in aging​ adults with limited mobility. The results of this study will be used to provide future guidance on physical exercise programs for older adults that may be deliverable on a broader scale.   

End of Award Update – February 2025

Results

This project began enrolment in September 2023 and is still ongoing. One of the most exciting milestones of 2024 was crossing the threshold of enrolling 100 participants (out of 290) and completing the intervention and final assessments for 60 participants. In the first year of the study, we were able to use participant feedback to improve their experiences and fine–tune our study procedures, which has led to an increased recruitment rate and improved efficiency within our team. 

Impact

The impacts of this project cannot be fully determined as data collection is still ongoing. The funding from CAN-TAP-TALENT and MSHR BC have greatly impacted my development as a postdoctoral researcher as I was able to present this project at the Clinical Trials Training Summit in Montreal, complete the Clinical Trials Training Program, present related research at international conferences, and network with other researchers throughout this fellowship. The funding and training I received in 2024 was instrumental in helping me to secure additional fellowship funding from MSHR BC to complete the SuPA project in its entirety over the next few years. In addition to securing additional fellowship funding, I had a first authored manuscript, related to my current research project, accepted for publication in the Physical Therapy Journal. This study demonstrated that in people who have previously fallen and have slower walking speeds, 6-months of exercise reduced subsequent falls and improved mobility and cognitive function.   

Potential Influence

The potential influence of this study cannot be fully determined as we are still completing data collection. Participants who have completed the study have shared positive feedback regarding their experiences in the study. We hope that the results of this study can allow us to make better recommendations to improve mobility in older adults with limited mobility through increasing their physical activity.   

Next Steps

This is project is still actively recruiting, with the goal of completing enrollment by September 2026 and concluding study interventions by March 2027. We are continually performing quality assessment checks to ensure participant satisfaction throughout the trial and guarantee data integrity. While working to complete the SuPA Mobility project, I am continuing to work with secondary data analyses that are exploring the impact of exercise interventions on people with mobility limitations and a high risk of falls.