Frail Older People Undergoing Inpatient Rehabilitation Clinical Trial
Official title:
Optimising Rehabilitation Outcomes in Frail Older Adults: Effects of Increasing the Amount of Physical Activity
The main aim of this study is to investigate whether increasing the amount of physical
activity in frail older people during hospital based rehabilitation is associated with
better mobility outcomes compared to usual care. A second aim is to investigate whether this
physical activity intervention is associated with improvements in health related quality of
life. Finally we plan to investigate whether increasing the amount of physical activity
during rehabilitation is cost effective, measured from a health system perspective, compared
with usual care.
Older people receiving inpatient rehabilitation will be randomly assigned to an intervention
group, who will receive extra physical activity on weekdays and weekends or a control group,
who will receive additional activities based on social interaction. The activity sessions
will be individualized to the particular participant. Both groups of people will be assessed
at baseline, discharge from hospital and at 6 months following discharge. The intervention
group will be provided with one or two extra sessions on weekdays and two extra sessions on
weekends for the duration of their rehabilitation stay. To account for the extra
physiotherapy time that the intervention group receives, the people in the control group
will spend the same amount of time performing other activities, such as cards, board games
or reading, whilst seated. To ensure the safety of the participants in this study, each
physical activity session will be supervised by either a physiotherapist or allied health
assistant.
Hypothesis 1: The primary hypothesis is that, compared with usual care, increasing the
amount of physical activity in frail older people during rehabilitation will lead to more
optimal mobility at discharge, as measured by gait speed.
Secondary hypotheses are that, compared with usual care, increasing the amount of physical
activity during rehabilitation will:
Hypothesis 2: lead to significantly greater improvements in mobility and function both at
discharge and six months following discharge.
Hypothesis 3: lead to better quality of life six months following hospital discharge,
measured using the EuroQol Health (EQ5D) Questionnaire and the EuroQol-Visual Analogue Scale
(EQ-VAS).
Hypothesis 4: be cost effective compared to usual care
n/a
Allocation: Randomized, Endpoint Classification: Efficacy Study, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Single Blind (Outcomes Assessor), Primary Purpose: Treatment