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Walk Together, A Technology Framework to Enable Successful Aging

Table of Contents

Introduction

When considering the different methods currently and historically used to facilitate healthy aging, it is often challenging to associate the interventions with any research-based advice. For example, generally prescribed methods such as mental stimulation, playing brain training games, and starting new diets have not been shown to significantly affect cognitive ability or delay the onset of dementia. On the other hand, a relatively simple but powerful intervention, walking, has produced numerous positive health effects, one of the best activities conducive to healthy aging. In the following paper, I will propose the idea of Walk Together, a science-backed application with a mission to facilitate successful aging.

Current Solutions to Successful Aging

To understand the premise behind Walk Together, it is essential to understand current methods prescribed to facilitate healthy aging and their shortcomings. According to a study by the University of Cologne, common negative stereotypes about older individuals include "suffering from poor health and loneliness, physical and cognitive incompetency, unproductivity, and unattractiveness" (Reissmann, M., Geithner, L., Storms, A., & Woopen, 2021). Platforms that claim to help with healthy aging often try to target these stereotypes as the problem their product addresses. Out of the stereotypes listed, mental incompetency is one of the only stereotypes that cannot be directly controlled, often making it a focus for targeted approaches to "reverse aging" and "stay sharp."

Popular interventions for "keeping sharp" include using brain-training apps and participating in mentally stimulating activities like crosswords. Although these activities often seem cognitively related to some of the issues that arise from the cognitive decline that happens with aging, they often do not play a role in improving those real-world abilities. For instance, according to a study that measured if participants improved their cognitive abilities after enrolling in a brain training regimen, participants often only showed improvement in the tasks they were trained on, having difficulty in transferring the training to tasks that are more relevant in daily life and somewhat related to the training domain (Castel, 2019).

Although there is no direct harm in taking part in brain training games, misleading older adults into thinking that they will delay the onset of their cognitive decline can incentivize the adults to spend more time on these games rather than participating in other activities they might enjoy. In this case, the opportunity cost of staying on a screen with the games not only misleads the adults but also replaces activities proven to promote healthy aging, such as socializing with others and participating in physical exercise. While brain training programs have been found to have limited benefits for healthy aging, regular physical activity such as walking has been shown to have numerous positive effects on overall health and cognitive function.

Benefits of Physical Activity and Walking

Walk Together revolves around using walking as a means to promote successful aging. Thus, understanding the benefits of general physical activity is vital to appreciating Walk Together's impact. The broad term physical activity can be broken down into exercise, the planned, structured, and repetitive nature of the physical activity, and physical function, an individual's capacity to perform the physical activities of daily living. (Langhammer, B., Bergland, A., & Rydwik, 2018). Regarding exercise, maintaining habits can rewire the brain positively by promoting the growth of neural pathways that support healthy behaviors. Additionally, research has shown that habitual healthy behaviors such as exercise can promote neuroplasticity, leading to improved cognitive function and overall brain health.

Maintaining physical function is beneficial for maintaining the ability to participate in daily life and the emotional feeling of independence. The feeling of independence is emotionally crucial for older adults because it helps them manage a sense of control and autonomy over their own lives. This feeling has also been correlated with greater self-esteem and confidence in an individual's abilities, which can improve overall well-being. Thus, maintaining physical activity helps with many factors besides physical health improvements, including healthy habit-building and emotional well-being. Along with these positive side effects, physical activity such as walking is one of the only activities shown to improve "sharpness" in old age.

Walking has been shown to provide numerous benefits for brain health, from improving cognitive function and memory to reducing the risk of age-related cognitive decline and dementia. For instance, in one study, older adults were randomly assigned to a walking group and a stretching group, and "after six months and again one year later, the walking group outperformed the stretching group on various tests of memory and cognitive functioning" (Castel, 2019). Furthermore, the older people who habitually walked showed a two-percent increase in the volume of their hippocampus, something that usually declines around one percent per year. Although more efficient forms of cardiovascular exercise have the same effects as walking, Walk Together focuses on walking because it is easier for older adults to continue doing and can provide a social factor as well.

The Application

Walk Together is a cloud-based platform that connects older adults in the same area and schedules walking times throughout the week. For instance, a user can log in to the application, request a walk, and be scheduled to walk on a predetermined route with someone with a similar location and goal. Once they finish the Walk, they can end their session by recording the information about their route and allowing the user to save their partner's profile if they want to continue walking with them.

Walk Together

One of the key downsides to habit-based applications such as Duolingo and the Apple Ring Challenge is that keeping the motivation to continue doing something demanding on time is challenging. Thus, one of the critical features of Walk Together would be a scheduling tool that will take in availability based on linked calendars or input and preschedule the user's walking partners throughout the coming week based on the user's locational preferences. If the user chooses to miss a planned session, a small contribution will be placed on the user's account to a charity of choice. This feature is critical to implement as it will keep the users sticking to their walking schedule and not canceling on partners committed to using the app. Furthermore, gamification of data such as walking streaks and cancellation rates might incentivize older adults to keep using the app and walk more. Some of the more minor but interesting features include route searching that contains chores on the way, saved routes, messaging, and shareable monthly recaps of the user's walking progress.

Conclusion

Although Walking Together is not going to be the "silver bullet" to reverse aging, it would be a great way to inspire older adults to engage in physical activity while reaping the benefits of social interaction and going outside. When designing this platform, many considerations about design and usability need to be studied, especially since this application would require a touchscreen device. However, with a specialized UI/UX design team, software engineers, and scientists studying healthy aging, Walk Together might be a tremendous science- driven approach to promoting healthy aging.

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