NCT04928885

Evaluation of the Wits Workout Wellness Program for Older Adults

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 285 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Illinois at Chicago · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 50 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

About 11% of the U.S. older adult population is at risk for or suffers from subjective cognitive decline. While some factors such as genetics and habitual physiological changes that affect brain health cannot be changed, research has shown that lifestyle changes such as participation in regular physical activity, staying socially engaged, and managing stress and diet can help to delay or reduce cognitive decline. Yet few brain health promotion programs exist and those that do fail to focus on global health and wellness as a strategy to improve brain health. Wits Workout is a holistic, 12-session, 60-minute per session, multi-modal workshop series that offers adults ages 50 and older facilitated, interactive dialogue and activities about behaviors that promote brain health. Each week includes a different themed module which has four activities and a training component.

Detailed description

While research has shown that lifestyle changes such as participation in regular physical activity, staying socially engaged, and managing stress can help to delay or reduce cognitive decline, few cognitive brain health programs exist. Those that do are targeted to a specific audience (i.e., Alzheimer's and related dementias) and primarily focus on one health domain (i.e. physical activity, diet) without the additional focus on multi-dimensions of health, which can also include intellectual engagement, social isolation, stress, sleep, and self-efficacy. Thus, there is a need for a more holistic cognitive health program aimed toward the general older adult population and particularly those that are underserved due to geographic location. Wits Workout, is a multi-modal 12-session (60 min/week) workshop series designed to enhance brain health among people ages 50 and older. Wits Workout addresses multiple factors that affect cognitive health such as physical activity, diet, intellectual engagement, social isolation, stress, sleep, and self-efficacy. The holistic workshop series is designed to be lay-leader led, interactive, and experiential. Preliminary evaluations demonstrate that this educational series serves a need in reducing isolation, increasing physical activity, promoting intellectual engagement, and enhancing overall brain health in older participants, all of which complement current aging brain health research. The researchers propose to conduct a two-arm randomized controlled trial with a treatment (workshop) group (n=120) and wait-list control group (n=120) who will receive the program after the 6-month study period is completed.

Conditions

• Cognitive Decline
• Social Isolation
• Health Behaviors
• Self Efficacy

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Wits Workout Program	12 week, one hour per week multi-modal, interactive training.
OTHER	Control Group that receives intervention after the study	The control group will not receive the intervention during study period but will take baseline, 3 mos and 6 mos surveys. They will complete the workshop after the study period is over.

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-07-07
• Primary completion: 2022-08-30
• Completion: 2022-08-30
• First posted: 2021-06-16
• Last updated: 2024-03-20
• Results posted: 2024-03-20

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States