Older Adult Perceptions of Participation in Group- and Home-Based Falls Prevention Exercise.

This paper describes why older adults begin, continue, and discontinue group- and home-based falls prevention exercise and benefits and barriers to participation. Telephone surveys were used to collect data for 394 respondents. Most respondents reported not participating in group- (66%) or home-based (78%) falls prevention exercise recently. Reasons for starting group-based falls prevention exercise include health benefits (23–39%), health professional recommendation (13–19%), and social interaction (4–16%). They discontinued because the program finished (44%) or due to poor health (20%). Commonly reported benefits were social interaction (41–67%) and health (15–31%). Disliking groups was the main barrier (2–14%). Home-based falls prevention exercise was started for rehabilitation (46–63%) or upon health professional recommendation (22–48%) and stopped due to recovery (30%). Improvement in health (18–46%) was the main benefit. These findings could assist health professionals in prescribing group-based falls prevention exercise by considering characteristics of older adults who perceive social interaction to be beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]