With the aging of the population in Western societies, it is vitally important to provide tools for healthy aging. Physical activity, and its structured form, physical exercise, is at the forefront of the strategies available for healthy aging. Despite its benefits in preventing adverse events such as falls, hospitalization, institutionalization, and even mortality, only 14% of individuals over the age of 65 meet international recommendations for physical activity.  

A multicomponent exercise program (VIVIFRAIL) has demonstrated its efficacy in patients aged 75 years or older with frailty and cognitive impairment seen in outpatient clinics of geriatric hospitals, with substantially high adherence when the intervention was supervised by a caregiver. However, the effectiveness of the VIVIFRAIL programme in relatively healthy people living in the community has not been evaluated, nor has its implementation been carried out without supervision. 

There is an unmet need for clinically validated unsupervised physical exercise programs. Existing unsupervised fitness solutions, such as the VIVIFRAIL app, suffer from fundamental limitations: 

• • Exercises are recommended based on the score obtained on the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB), a functional status test that can be administered quickly by an external assessor (professional or caregiver), and which is sensitive to changes and capable of predicting adverse events. However, to date, it is not possible for older adults to perform this test without external supervision, with feedback on whether the test is being performed correctly. In particular, there is still no adequate unsupervised measure for balance assessment. 

• • The VIVIFRAIL application does not provide any information about the intensity with which the exercises are being performed to know if progress is being made. This information could increase adherence to the program and, consequently, its effectiveness. What’s more, there is a lack of information on which frequency and intensity of exercise provide the best results in terms of increased functional capacity, something that could be known by linking exercise performance to health outcomes. 

• • The VIVIFRAIL app does not include any motivational support or strategies to prevent non-adherence, nor does it offer the possibility of contacting other colleagues to follow the exercise program. Even if the older person knows the expected long-term benefits, a decrease in motivation over time can lead to abandonment. 

MOTIVA aims to overcome these limitations by creating and clinically validating a computational ecosystem aimed at robust and pre-frail older adults living in the community, modulated by the user’s motivational profile (measured by an objective game-based behavioural test) and their functional status (measured by the standalone application of SPPB),  that evaluates the user’s performance while exercising autonomously with VIVIFRAIL, and with an adaptive motivational assistant to fight against abandonment. We also pay special attention to ease of use and accessibility, ensuring that our digital solution doesn’t abandon people as they age.