With the improvement of medical and sanitation, the average life expectancy of human beings
around the world has gradually increased, which has led to the trend of an aging society.
Therefore, the health issues of the elderly have received more attention. Aging should cause
impairment of human body functions, including significant decline in sensory systems (vision,
hearing, vestibular, proprioception, etc.), muscle strength, muscle endurance, balance, and
gait functions, which may increase accidental falls or injuries. risks. According to the
cause of death statistics compiled by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 2022, among the
causes of death among the elderly, falls ranked second among the causes of death from
accidental injuries over the age of 65. According to the literature, it was found that most
of the causes of falls among the elderly are related to internal factors (including decreased
muscle strength, balance, and cognitive function), and exercise has been proven to prevent
falls in many studies, especially Square-Stepping Exercise can not only train strength and
balance, but also improve cognitive function and reduce the fear of falling in the elderly.
It is an intervention method that is easy to implement in the community. Compared with
traditional resistance training, circuit training is shorter duration and lower intensity,
which may increase compliance with training assistance. Also, can make up for shortcomings of
Square-Stepping Exercise. Training takes turns, resulting in long waiting times for a class.
In experiments on exercise intervention, it was found that multicomponent exercise combined
with a variety of exercises is more effective in preventing falls than a single type of
exercise. Therefore, this study will use Square-Stepping Exercise as the core and circuit
training as the structure to design a set of exercise training that combines muscle strength
and balance and is easy to implement in the community. The purpose of the study is to
determine whether exercise training that combines circuit training with block stepping,
muscle strength, and balance exercises can reduce the risk of falls among elderly people in
the community (primary results: muscle strength, flexibility, cardiorespiratory endurance,
balance; secondary results: cognitive function, Fear of falling, fall rate). This study will
collect participant in the community, and subjects will be randomly assigned to the
experimental group and the control group on a community basis. The experimental group will
receive 12 weeks of exercise training, while the control group will follow their usual
lifestyle, with 48 people in each group. The experimental design is exercise intervention for
12 weeks, twice a week, 90 minutes each time (30 minutes of main exercise). The exercise is
designed into two stages according to the difficulty of Square-Stepping Exercise. The
training of muscle strength and dynamic/static balance will also gradually increase in
difficulty over the weeks. The research data were analyzed using IBM SPSS, and we look
forward to seeing the effects of multi-component exercise on physical fitness, cognitive
function, fear of falling and fall rate.
Keywords: community, elderly people, falls, fall prevention, Square-Stepping Exercise,
circuit training, exercise training, physical fitness, cognitive function, fear of falling
