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Healthy Life for Frail Malnourished Seniors Performed Together With Trained Lay Buddies

NCT01991639 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 80

Last updated 2016-02-03

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Background: In elderly subjects frailty and malnutrition are very common and can lead to serious health hazards, increase mortality, morbidity, dependency, institutionalization and a reduced quality of life. In Austria, the prevalence of frailty and malnutrition are increasing steadily and are becoming a challenge for our social system. Physical training and adequate nutrition can invert it.

Methods/Design: In this randomized, controlled trial 80 malnourished, frail, community-dwelling patients (≥ 65 years) are recruited. Additionally, 80 lay volunteers (≥ 50 years) named buddies are recruited and subsequently trained regarding health enhancing physical activity and nutrition in three standardized training sessions. These buddies visit the malnourished, frail subjects at home twice a week for about one hour during an initial period of 10-12 weeks. While participants allocated to the intervention group (n=40) conduct intervention to improve their fluid intake, their protein and energy intake, perform strength training and try to increase their baseline activities, the control group (n=40) only gets home visits without any special intervention. After 10-12 weeks, both, the intervention and the control group, receive the nutrition intervention and the physical training. Health, nutrition and frailty status, physical fitness and body composition and chronic inflammation of buddies and frails are recorded before the intervention, after 10-12 weeks, and after 6 and 12 months.

Discussion: To the investigators knowledge this trial is the first of its kind to provide nutrition and physical activity intervention to malnourished, frail, community-dwelling subjects by trained lay buddies, in which the health status of buddies is also expected to improve. This study assesses the effectiveness of such an intervention. If successful, the intervention offers new perspectives for the management of frailty and malnutrition.

Conditions

  • Frail Elderly
  • Malnutrition

Interventions

OTHER

Nutritional and physical activity intervention

Buddies visit malnourished, frail, elderly subjects twice a week for approximately one hour and they perform nutritional and physical activity interventions.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Medical University of Vienna

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Thomas E Dorner, Priv.Doz. · Institut für Sozialmedizin

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Masking
NONE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
65 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2014-01-31
Primary Completion
2015-12-31
Completion
2015-12-31

Countries

  • Austria

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT01991639 on ClinicalTrials.gov