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USC steps up research into exercise rehabilitation
The University of the Sunshine Coast is making great strides forward in a collaborative research project aimed at improving exercise rehabilitation programs for older adults.
Forty eager volunteers, aged 55 to 75, are being put through their paces in an extensive walking study being conducted by USC Exercise Physiologist Dr Chris Askew, Science Honours student Freya Schroder and visiting research scholar Tobias Vogt of the German Sport University.
The team is assessing the effects of various intensities of exercise on people’s cardiac and brainwave activity, and also how the exercise affects people’s moods.
Dr Askew said the research would help determine what intensity of exercise was required to encourage people to stick with an exercise rehabilitation program after injury or chronic disease.
This, in turn, could lead to the delivery of rehabilitation programs that were more effective and enjoyable, he said.
“If we can better understand the psychological and physiological responses to exercise, then we are better able to utilise exercises that people will adhere to,” he said.
“That age, 55-75, is important because people in this age group are most likely to require an exercise program to treat a chronic disease.”
Dr Askew said the volunteers will visit USC’s Centre for Healthy Activities, Sport and Exercise (CHASE) research laboratory on four separate occasions during the course of the research.
Each participant will walk various distances while wearing a pedometer (a step counter), and their heart and brain activity will be monitored using an ECG (electrocardiogram) and an EEG (electroencephalogram).