Scoping review of health and wellness interventions for people aging with a physical disability

Introduction. There is an urgent need to increase knowledge, services, and evidence-based health and wellness (HW) interventions for people aging with and into disability as traditional aging services are expanding to serve this subpopulation. People who are aging with or into physical disabilities have high prevalence of comorbid conditions and health risk factors and this subpopulation is projected to increase dramatically in the next 20 years. A scoping review of the HW intervention literature was conducted in order to: (1) assess the adaptability of the interventions for people aging with a physical disability and (2) contrast the interventions with evidenced-based HW interventions in aging populations that are being implemented across the U.S. on a larger scale.

Methods. PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycINFO were searched for peer-reviewed articles about adults with spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, stroke, osteoarthritis, post-polio syndrome, and muscular dystrophy. The inclusion criteria for articles included: (1) addressed promotion of HW in adults with physical disabilities; (2) focused on community-based behavioral or educational intervention that targeted HW.

Results. Data were extracted from 82 articles meeting inclusion criteria. The most common HW interventions included exercise, self-management, counseling, and health education, which often paralleled interventions being deployed by aging agencies.

Conclusion. There is support for adapting concepts and strategies from HW interventions from the fields of both aging and disability by applying standard adaptation models to create evidence-based HW interventions for the subpopulation of people aging with and into disability.