Views and experiences of visually impaired older people and exercise instructors about the Falls Management Exercise programme: a qualitative study

Purpose: To gain insight into visually impaired older people’s views regarding acceptability of an adapted Falls Management Exercise programme, and to explore Postural Stability Instructors’s perspectives on provision of the programme.

Materials and methods: Data from this qualitative study comprised interviews with nine visually impaired older people and two Postural Stability Instructors. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.

Results: Themes identified from interviews with the participants related to self-perception, exercise-related factors and facilitators to participation. Participants positioned themselves as not old or at risk of falls, felt exercises were not challenging enough and recommended that home exercise materials be offered in individually tailored formats. Themes identified from interviews with the instructors related to programme adaptations for visual impairments, exercises and facilitators to participation. Instructors recommended stratifying groups into levels of ability. Social time after the exercise sessions was deemed key in programme adherence by both participants and instructors.

Conclusions: Visually impaired older people have similar barriers and facilitators to group-based falls prevention sessions as older people without visual impairment, but seem to have more difficulties in motivation to exercise at home. Both participants and instructors felt the main facilitator to adherence to group exercise sessions was the social time.