Locally Founded Exercise Program Shares Legacy and New Research at Aging Conference

Exercise is a powerful way to improve physical and mental health at all ages. However, like any lifestyle change, becoming more active is sometimes harder than it sounds. One program to get older adults moving more has stood the test of time: Enhance®Fitness.

Over three decades ago, after a surgeon general’s warning mentioned that too many older adults were living sedentary lives, the University of Washington partnered with a local senior center to start what would eventually become EnhanceFitness. The program aimed to help older adults get active in a group setting, to better their health and help prevent falls. EnhanceFitness consists of three one-hour classes a week, typically for about four months, and includes activities focusing on cardio, balance, strength, and stretching.

Since its founding, the program has proven an incredible success. Not only has it grown and expanded, but it’s now backed by an impressive evidence base showing that the program helps with everything from arthritis to depression, falls, and more. The benefits stretch beyond the few months people are in class too. After the program, participants tend to stay physically active.

It’s “really the community’s program,” said Paige Denison, Director of Health, Wellness and Project Enhance at Sound Generations, in a symposium at the 2024 Gerontological Society of America’s Annual Meeting held in Seattle Denison pointed out that despite staffing changes, the program has thrived over the past few decades.

Now managed by Sound Generations, a nonprofit for older adults in the Seattle area, the program continues to develop and evolve. Like many activities, the COVID-19 pandemic moved EnhanceFitness’ operations online, leaving the staff wondering if the program worked as well virtually. Looking at the evidence, the answer appears to be yes.

At the Gerontological Society of America panel, University of Washington faculty Kushang Patel presented evidence collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, looking at how well the program worked online. Although data collection was smaller and less rigorous due to relaxing some requirements, such as attendance, the program still improved measures of participants’ health, like how quickly they could move from sitting to standing.

Building on Patel’s findings, Nancy Gell from the University of Vermont demonstrated the program worked well for cancer survivors going to the program virtually, and may have even helped attendance. Having a group and a set schedule, where people met online at the same time every day, helped motivate people to show up, she shared.

The program is looking into other ways it can expand who it can help. UW School of Nursing de Tornyay Center for Healthy Aging director, Basia Belza, shared a recent pilot study in the Seattle area, by UW School of Nursing researchers, looking at how feasible EnhanceFitness was for people with dementia and their care partners. The study aimed to understand how best to adjust programming to the population. There were many obstacles, with six out of eight of the pairs of participants dropping out because of unrelated health problems, being too tired, and more. However, participants in the program still felt it was helpful. “I feel better, and I feel like I can physically do a little more than I could before,” one shared. The work pointed to important barriers to address for people living with dementia and their care partners going forward.

Another way the program is hoping to reach more people is by improving the referral process. At the panel discussion, Elise Hoffman, a research consultant with the University of Washington, presented work by her team making referrals from medical professionals easier and smoother. They developed a system where health care practitioners can refer patients simply by selecting a class, and hitting a button that says ‘refer’. The new system also has a way for instructors and referring health care professionals to communicate with each other – a feature both have asked for in the past.

The EnhanceFitness program is now offered around the Puget Sound and at over 1000 locations around the country, and has been adapted to suit many different exercise needs. To learn more about the program and to find local offerings, visit https://projectenhance.org/locations/.