Pilot study demonstrates improved health behaviors in older adults using a community app with avatars, indicating potential for more effective interventions.
Background Maintaining exercise and medication habits is crucial for older adults, but conventional reminder-based digital interventions often produce only transient effects. Methods We conducted a mixed-methods pilot feasibility study comparing a reminder-only intervention (Experiment 1, N = 10) with a healthcare community app combining reminders and avatar-based virtual social interaction (Experiment 2, N = 10) in older adult care facilities over 4-week baseline and 4-week intervention periods. Primary outcomes were daily step counts and medication adherence. Results The Reminder group showed a transient increase in step count in Week 1 (+16%) that declined to below baseline by Week 4 (−10.3%). In contrast, the Reminder + Support group maintained substantial step count improvements throughout the intervention (Week 4: +58.4%), with statistically significant differences at all time points. Medication adherence showed similar trends. A between-group comparison (Mann-Whitney U = 11.0, p < 0.05) supported greater efficacy of the Reminder + Support intervention. Qualitative data confirmed higher satisfaction and stronger social motivation in the Reminder + Support group. Conclusion These preliminary findings suggest that integrating avatar-based social interaction with reminder functions may support more sustained health behavior change in older adults than reminders alone, warranting confirmation in larger randomized trials.
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Nakamura et al. (2026) studied this question.
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