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Brendon Stubbs, Ruimin Ma, Felipe Schuch, James Mugisha, Simon Rosenbaum, Joseph Firth, and Davy Vancampfort
Kim Stroesser, Adam Mulcaster, and David M. Andrews
Background: Pickleball has grown tremendously in recent years, yet little evidence exists regarding pickleball-related injuries. This scoping review extends current work on pickleball participation by identifying positive and negative health effects associated with the sport. We summarize how pickleball impacts the health and well-being of adult participants. Methods: Searches were conducted on MEDLINE, CINAHL, ProQuest Nursing, ERIC, SPORTDiscus, PsycINFO, Scopus, CBCA Complete, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. Selected studies considered aspects of health and/or well-being of adult pickleball participants. Using the population/concept/context framework, participants were healthy, able-bodied adults 18 years of age or over, who had played pickleball at least once. The positive and negative outcomes of pickleball on participants’ health and well-being (concept) within the context of pickleball participation were examined. Full-text articles written in English since 2013 were included. Extracted data were tabulated, and a descriptive summary with thematic analysis was completed. Results: This scoping review comprised 27 articles that met the inclusion criteria. Pickleball is promising as an exercise intervention for all adults, and there is evidence of positive social and psychological effects, and health and fitness benefits to participating in pickleball by older adults. Conclusions: Although we are still in the early stages of studying pickleball, there have been some documented health benefits of using the sport as a physical exercise intervention for adults. More research is needed on the types, prevalence, and severity of pickleball injuries and the sport’s impact on younger players.
Jessica Hill, Pamela Meredith, Grace Forrester, Julia Shirley, and Sjaan R. Gomersall
Background: Physical inactivity is recognized as a global health challenge. Attachment theory may provide insight into individual physical activity (PA) patterns, informing the development of PA interventions to promote the maintenance of behavior change. This study investigated the associations between attachment orientation and why and how individuals engage in PA. Given the association between attachment and sensory processing, this study also investigated the link between sensory processing and PA participation. Methods: Participants (N = 141) completed an online questionnaire that included the Modified Experiences of Close Relationships Scale and the Highly Sensitive Person Scale. The relationship between attachment orientation and sensory processing patterns, and preference for PA participation were analyzed using 2-sided independent t tests. Results: Attachment avoidance, attachment anxiety, and sensory sensitivity were significantly related to participants’ preference for PA participation in theoretically consistent ways. Avoidantly attached individuals were less likely to participate in PA as a form of social interaction (mean = 8.57, SD = 2.87, P = .005, d = 0.48). Anxiously attached individuals were more likely to participate in PA to support weight management (mean = 37.02, SD = 11.54, P = .01, d = −0.46) or if recommended by a health professional (mean = 43.55, SD = 12.45, P = .039, d = −0.88). Sensory sensitive individuals were more likely to participate in PA alone (mean = 124.11, SD = 19.23, P = .005, d = −0.510), and more likely to prefer light-intensity forms of PA (mean = 133.29, SD = 12.67, F 3,123 = 5.49, P = .001). Conclusions: Findings highlight the potential value of considering an individual’s attachment orientation and sensory processing patterns in the development of PA interventions. This may help to address the challenges of PA participation, by individually tailoring interventions to participants.
Peixuan Zheng, Hayley V. MacDonald, Mark T. Richardson, Kaiwen Man, Ian M. McDonough, and Elroy J. Aguiar
Background: Cadence-controlled walking may be a desirable approach for older adults to self-monitor exercise intensity and achieve physical activity guidelines. We examined the acute effects of cadence-controlled walking on cognition and vascular function in physically inactive older adults. Methods: In a randomized crossover design, 26 participants (65% females, 67.8 ± 11.3 years) underwent 30-min acute exercise (walking at 100 steps/min) and control (sitting) conditions. We measured cognition, central blood pressure (BP), and arterial stiffness before, and immediately, after each condition. Results: We observed significant Time × Condition interactions in the Flanker Inhibitory Control and Attention (Flanker) test and Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) test scores, and in central systolic BP, central pulse pressure, and carotid to femoral pulse wave velocity (p < .05). The Flanker and DCCS scores significantly increased after walking (d = 0.4 and 0.5, respectively), but not after sitting. Central systolic BP, central pulse pressure, and carotid to femoral pulse wave velocity significantly increased after sitting but remained unchanged after acute walking (d = 0.4–0.2), with p-values < .05. After walking, significant correlations were observed between DCCS and diastolic BP and central pulse pressure change scores and change scores in central pulse wave velocity, Flanker, and DCCS (r s = −0.45 to −0.52). Conclusion: These findings suggest that a single bout of cadence-controlled walking elicited an immediate improvement in cognition and might have mitigated increases in arterial stiffness and central BP observed in the seated control condition. Further research is needed to examine the association between cognition and vascular function following acute exercise compared to control conditions. Significance: Our findings may have practical implications for developing daily physical activity recommendations for improving the cognitive health for successful aging.
Nick Kluft, Jeroen B.J. Smeets, and Katinka van der Kooij
We investigated whether dosed failure motivates older adults to perform more repetitions in an exergame that involves hitting targets with stepping movements. The effect of dosed failure was studied in a within-participants design in which all participants performed this exergame in both a Standard condition, in which one never fails, and in a Dosed Failure condition, in which we introduced about 30% failures. The order of conditions (Standard First or Dosed Failure first) was chosen randomly for each participant. Results showed that participants performed more repetitions in the Dosed Failure condition compared with the Standard condition, while play duration and subjective motivation at the moment of quitting did not differ. This shows that dosed failure motivated older adults to put a greater amount of effort to perform the exercise without affecting play duration or subjective motivation.
Priya Patel, Harsh Pandya, Rajiv Ranganathan, and Mei-Hua Lee
Manual exploratory behaviors during object interaction that form the basis of tool use behavior, are mostly qualitatively characterized in terms of their frequency and duration of occurrence. To fully understand their functional and clinical significance, quantitative movement characterization is needed alongside their qualitative analysis. However, there are two challenges in quantifying them—(a) reliably classifying the type of movement and (b) performing this classification on a time series automatically. Here, we propose a machine learning-based classification method to address these challenges. We measured three common exploratory behaviors (object rotation, fingering, and throwing) in college-aged adults using “sensorized objects” that had wireless Inertial Measurement Units embedded in them. We then calculated several statistical features based on linear acceleration and angular velocity data to train machine learning classifiers to identify these behaviors. All classifiers identified the behaviors with a substantially higher accuracy (average accuracy = 84.95 ± 4.16%) than chance level (33.33%). Of all models tested, Support Vector Machine Quadratic, Support Vector Machine Medium Gaussian, and Narrow Neural Network were the best models in classifying the three behaviors (average accuracy = 89.34 ± 0.12%). This classification method shows potential for automating movement characterization of exploratory behaviors, thereby may aid early assessment of neurodevelopmental disorders.
Case Studies in Sport and Exercise Psychology
Markus Kuusela, Valtteri Pohjola, Katariina Sarttila, Matti Munukka, Riikka Holopainen, Mikko Laaksonen, Annamari Lundqvist, and Jouni Lahti
Background: To prospectively examine the association between physical fitness and risk of disability retirement in a large population-based cohort. Methods: This study utilized data from Health 2011 survey Physical Activity subsample (n = 4898), combined with information on disability retirement derived from 2 national registers. In total, 2455 individuals aged 18–74 years underwent the physical fitness test protocol concerning measures of cardiorespiratory fitness, muscle strength, and balance. The outcome variable was disability retirement, during the follow-up period of 9 years. After excluding those not at risk of disability retirement (ie, age ≥63 y) or who had already been granted disability pension, and those who had not completed the fitness protocol, the analytical sample included 1381 participants. Data were analyzed using Cox regression model with SPSS (version 29). Results: During the 9-year follow-up period, 61 individuals (4.4%) transitioned to a disability retirement. Cox regression analysis showed an association between the various physical fitness subdomains and the risk of disability retirement. In model 1, all fitness tests were associated with the risk of disability retirement, except the one-leg stand test with hazard ratios ranging from 1.69 (95% CI, 0.86–3.34) to 5.75 (95% CI, 1.84–17.90). Further adjustment for sociodemographic, health behavior, and health-related covariates attenuated the associations and statistical significance was lost, except for the vertical jump test (hazard ratio = 4.33; 95% CI, 1.32–14.10) and 6-minute walk test (hazard ratio = 3.81; 95% CI, 1.35–10.70). Conclusion: These findings highlight the importance of physical fitness for preventing work disability.
