Effects of adapted orienteering for aged: study protocol of a randomized clinical trial

BACKGROUND: Orienteering practice has stood out among the aged population because it has a strong social compo-nent, involves walking and concomitantly stimulates several cognitive abilities. It is a modality related with the neurosci-entific paradigm called "double-task" in the area of human motricity and cognition. It is intended to analyze the effect of the orienteering modality adapted for independent aged.METHODS: The study will be made by comparison with the hiking modality and a control group targeting physical and cognitive skills and quality of life. This is a two-arm randomized clinical trial (RCT) and a control group for 24 weeks. The sample size determined at N.=90 for the allocation of three groups: orienteering group (GO), hiking group (GH) and control group (CG). For the possible differences between baseline vs. post 24-weeks paired intragroups tests (paired t -test) and unpaired inter-groups (ANOVA) will be applied. Effect size was set to: no effect (0.2), small (0.2-0.5), medium (0.5-0.8) and large (>0.8).RESULTS: It is expected to show that adapted orienteering can develop physical, cognitive and behavioral skills in physi-cal activity programs for the aged, impacting on quality of life.CONCLUSIONS: This study will provide a model of the orienteering modality applied to independent aged through an RCT. Finally, this future evidence will be able to verify that the adapted orienteering emerges as a useful and effective preventive modality, important to be inserted in physical activity programs for independent aged, even if they have never experienced the orienteering.