Both Virtual and Human Coaches Help Older Adults Walk More, Study Finds

A Stanford Medicine study in JAMA Internal Medicine says virtual and human coaches can help sedentary older adults become more physically active, according to the Stanford Medicine News Center . The study focused on Latinos as they lean toward higher rates of obesity and diabetes, and because physical activity programs in the United States are often offered exclusively in English. The researchers tapped a virtual, computer-based adviser named Carmen previously tested in a smaller pilot study. They compared Carmen with a group of trained peer advisers, who coached 245 underactive Latino participants between the ages of 50 and 87 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Participants visited their local community centers for a year, where about half interacted with Carmen through a computer screen. The other half consulted with a human adviser. Carmen queried about their progress toward their walking goals, and those coached by the virtual adviser increased their activity significantly, walking about 154 minutes more per week on average — comparable to participants coached by a human, who reported about 132 minutes more walking per week. Moreover, both cohorts lost an average of about five pounds over the course of the study.