A 12-week community-based walking intervention called MABIDA enrolled 52 older adults (mean age 73.3±5.7 years) with fear of falling across summer and winter cohorts. One supervised 60-minute group session per week, supplemented with exercises, achieved retention and adherence exceeding 75%. Participant satisfaction reached 82% and enjoyment 81%. A decisional tree tool correctly classified 72% of participants by mobility profile. Crucially, no significant performance differences emerged between seasons or walking-speed groups, suggesting broad adaptability despite winter dropouts being the sole source of attrition.
Fear of falling affects roughly 30–50% of community-dwelling older adults and creates a debilitating cycle: reduced activity accelerates deconditioning, which in turn elevates actual fall risk. Pharmacological and clinic-based interventions rarely address the social and environmental dimensions of this cycle. MABIDA's co-created, pragmatic design — embedding group social support as the top-cited facilitator at 59% — aligns with emerging evidence that peer accountability amplifies exercise adherence in aging populations more effectively than individualized prescriptions.
Limitations are notable: the sample of 41 completers is small, the study lacks a control group, and outcome measures appear largely self-reported and satisfaction-based rather than objective fall-incidence data. Winter-specific dropout also warrants a larger, seasonally stratified trial. As a preprint posted on medRxiv and not yet peer-reviewed, these findings should be treated as preliminary. Still, the seasonal durability signal is genuinely encouraging and positions MABIDA as a low-cost, scalable candidate for broader community health programming targeting mobility preservation.
