2.3. Intervention
Following the first visit assessments, participants were randomly assigned to one of two intervention groups, smartphone or paper, based on a computer-generated list. The allocation sequence and the following intervention protocol were provided by a trained Physical Therapist (SRO) who was blinded to participant performance across all three visits to the laboratory. The trainer provided participants with appropriate intervention procedures, with the exercise routine enabled on participant smartphones for those individuals randomized to the smartphone. Participants were blinded to the existence of the alternate exercise delivery methodology.All participants were asked to complete a twelve-session training program, with approximately 30 min of activity per session, three times a week for four weeks in their homes. Across the 12 sessions, participants received balance training following Gentile’s taxonomy of movement tasks [Upon completion of the four-week intervention, participants were provided with a questionnaire during their second visit to the laboratory regarding: (1) how effective the exercises were in improving balance on a 7-point Likert Scale, where 0 represented “Not at all effective” to 6 indicating “Very effective”; (2) how much they enjoyed the exercises on a 7-point Likert Scale, where 0 represented “Did not enjoy at all” to 6 being “Enjoyed tremendously”; (3) the difficulty of the intervention on a 5-point scale with each point corresponding to “very difficult”, “difficult”, “fair”, “easy”, and “very easy”; (4) the length of the exercise programs on a 5-point scale indicating “very long”, “long”, “just right”, “short”, and “very short”. Furthermore, among those in the smartphone group, 7-point scales were used to ask questions regarding whether using a smartphone application allowed the participant to “accomplish tasks more quickly”, “improved exercise performance”, “made it easier to exercise”, and were “useful in my exercise” in comparison to traditional methods, where 0 indicated “Extremely Untrue”, 3 indicated “Neither”, and 6 being “Extremely True”.