# Peer Support for Exercise in Older Veterans with Psychotic Disorders

> **NIH VA IK2** · BALTIMORE VA MEDICAL CENTER · 2021 · —

## Abstract

Anticipated Impacts on Veteran’s Healthcare: Older Veterans with psychotic disorders face unique barriers to
engagement in health-promoting activities, including prototypical features of psychosis (e.g., negative
symptoms, medication side effects) and exacerbating features of the aging process (e.g., increased medical
comorbidity, declines in musculoskeletal health). It is critical to develop strategies to empower this group to
overcome these barriers and engage in health behaviors that can improve their functioning and quality of life.
Peer interventions, or interventions delivered by individuals who are similar to a patient population on some
characteristic such as age or diagnosis, effectively promote engagement in health behaviors in a range of
populations. Despite the promise of peer support and urgent needs of older adults with psychosis, there are no
well-specified peer support interventions that promote participation in health behaviors and are tailored to the
needs of this group. The present study will yield a well-specified group-based peer coaching intervention, to be
delivered by VA Peer Specialists (Veterans in recovery from mental illness), targeted to empower older
Veterans with psychosis to overcome barriers, increase exercise/physical activity, and improve functioning.
Project Background: Over the next two decades, Veterans with psychotic disorders (i.e., schizophrenia
spectrum disorders and affective psychoses) will age into older adulthood in unprecedented numbers. The
challenges of treating this growing population and associated high costs will have profound implications for
VHA. Older adults with psychotic disorders exhibit diminished physical and psychosocial functioning and are at
increased risk for rapid functional decline and early institutionalization in nursing homes. Participation in
structured exercise delays functional disability in older adults; however, older adults with psychosis exhibit low
exercise participation. While peer-delivered exercise interventions for older adults promote initiation and
maintenance of exercise and physical activity, there are no peer-delivered exercise interventions tailored to the
unique needs of older adults with psychosis. The present study aims to fill this critical gap.
Project Objectives: This study will develop and pilot test a well-specified, group-based peer coaching
intervention tailored to the unique needs of older Veterans with psychotic disorders: Peer Education on
Exercise for Recovery (PEER). PEER will provide intensive coaching from a VA Peer Specialist to promote
participation in a supervised fitness training program for older Veterans. To develop the intervention, materials
from existing peer-delivered wellness interventions for Veterans with serious mental illness will be tailored for
older Veterans with psychosis, through an iterative process synthesizing the extant literature and pilot data,
developing draft materials, and obtaining feedback from a multidisciplinary...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10146200
- **Project number:** 5IK2RX002339-05
- **Recipient organization:** BALTIMORE VA MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Anjana Muralidharan
- **Activity code:** IK2 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-06-01 → 2022-04-08

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10146200

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10146200, Peer Support for Exercise in Older Veterans with Psychotic Disorders (5IK2RX002339-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10146200. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*