According to studies on exercise psychology, encouraging
people to develop positive attitudes about exercise, and
promoting long-term exercise has been a major challenge over
the years [1]. Strategies, based on psychological and behavioral
theories, have been identified for designing effective persuasive
technology that encourages people to adopt healthy lifestyle
habits [2, 3]. Some of these strategies are: providing positive
reinforcements to encourage change, providing awareness of
the impact of their behavior on their health, and addressing the
aesthetic aspect of the technology that has to support the user’s
personal style. In order to implement these design strategies to
motivate elders to exercise through persuasive technology, we
need to take into account the needs and problems they have for
exercising, and the factors that negatively and positively may
impact on their motivation. To reach this end, we carried out
40-minute semi-structured interviews with ten (10) non-frail
adults (aged from 55 to 77 years old. Some of the findings
identified from these interviewed show that passive elders (5
participants who do not regularly exercise) have reasons related
to not being able to exercise on a regular basis, such as: for
some of them it is difficult to get the habit of exercising, in
addition that they do not like to walk alone. On the other side,
staying healthy is the main motivation of active elders (5/10)
for not quitting their exercise routines. Finally, we identified
that exercising impacts positively on the elders’ social life. All
active elders have a more extended social network than passive
elders since they are prone to carry out activities that enable
them to interact with relatives and friends; while passive elders
participate in activities in which mainly their relatives are
involved.
Additionally, physicians are able to address safety concerns expressed by seniors, address the costs of activity and treat concurrent morbidities. An additional source of support comes with education. Older adults must be educated about the benefits of physical activity. This, in turn, empowers seniors to play a more informed, active role in their own health.