Note: CTSI supported the development of the program through two Strategic Opportunity Support awards (now called Pilot Awards). One award funded the preliminary feasibility and acceptability test of the program in older adults with schizophrenia and the other award funded a small RCT of the program in adults 18-64 years old with schizophrenia.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders affect an estimated 820,000 to 2.1 million people in the United States, many of whom have co-occurring disorders like heart disease or diabetes that contribute to an increased risk of premature death. Heather Leutwyler, associate professor of Physiological Nursing at the UC San Francisco School of Nursing, aims to lower the toll these disorders have on older people with schizophrenia and improve their functioning by getting them up and moving.
The method? Video games.
Creating an Effective and Enjoyable Exercise Program
Though the use of video games to promote exercise might seem counterintuitive, over the past six years, Leutwyler has secured funding from several sources to design and test an intervention that uses the Kinect system for Xbox – a video game platform – to provide an engaging and entertaining group exercise program for older adults with schizophrenia in a variety of treatment settings (e.g., inpatient, transitional residential). The funding came from various sources: the National Institute on Aging, the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Centers, the UCSF Clinical & Translational Science Institute and the UCSF Academic Senate. She and her co-investigators chose the video game-based program because the self-paced nature of the games offers a safe and easy way for a sedentary population to get started with exercise.