Low adherence and difficult long-term maintenance of exercise programs for cognitively impaired older adults have been reported. Older adults’ perception of having benefits from an exercise program is the key to their adherence to the program. This study aimed to investigate and compare the perceptions of disabled and demented older adults in wheelchairs toward the Wheelchair-bound Senior Elastic Band (WSEB) exercise program.

A descriptive and comparative design was applied. Data were derived from the experimental groups of two cluster-randomized controlled trials. A total of 133 participants from 8 long-term care facilities were recruited: disabled trial (four facilities, n=60) and dementia trial (four facilities, n=73). All participants received the Wheelchair-bound Senior Elastic Band exercises 3 times per week, 40minutes per session for 6 months. The self-rating survey using the criteria of simplicity, safety, appropriateness, and helpfulness was applied to rate the program through face-to-face individual interviews at the end of the study.

Both disabled and demented older adults have positive perceptions of the Wheelchair-bound Senior Elastic Band exercise program after 6-month of practice. The dementia group even had higher ratings for the four criteria of the program than the disabled participants.

Older adults with dementia were as capable of expressing their perceptions toward an exercise program through use of a self-rating survey as those without dementia. It is important to know how an exercise program was perceived by the participants in order to modify, improve, and sustain the long-term implementation of the program.