Feasibility of Additional Physiotherapy for Patients Aged 75 and Older

Summary

On average, people become physically weaker during even a short stay in hospital. This study is a feasibility/pilot study to see if additional physiotherapy exercises undertaken in hospital is feasible and acceptable to patients.

The study will compare two different types of physiotherapy exercise. Both exercise programmes involve twice-daily physiotherapy provided by one of the hospital's physiotherapy assistants, but only one of the two exercise programmes expected to provide benefit. This is on top of the care that people would normally receive, and will last for the first 7 days of their hospital admission (or until they are discharged if this is earlier).

Patients will be asked to consent to the study during the first 36 hours of their hospital admission. If patients provide consent, they will undergo a baseline assessment of their functional ability (including testing of their muscle strength) before being randomly assigned to one of the two exercise programmes. The study aims to recruit 15 patients to each group (30 in total).

Once randomised patients will be seen twice a day by a physiotherapy assistant who will supervise the exercise programme.

On the day that participants are discharged (or day 7 of their admission if earlier) the assessor will repeat measures of the participants functional ability. Following these measures participants will be invited to be interviewed to discuss their experience of taking part in the study.

Approximately one month after discharge, a researcher will visit the participant to repeat measures of their functional ability at their home.

Conditions

• Exercise
• Hospitalisation
• Older Adults

Interventions

OTHER

Strengthening exercises

The intervention group will receive 2 supervised exercise sessions a day. The exercise consists of progressive resistance training based around the movement of standing up/sitting down.

OTHER

Stretching exercises

The intervention group will receive 2 supervised exercise sessions a day. The exercise consists of gentle stretching of upper limbs and lower limbs.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Cambridge

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Dublin, Trinity College

  collaborator OTHER

• The Dunhill Medical Trust

  collaborator OTHER

• Addenbrooke's Charitable Trust

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

75 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-10-29

Primary Completion

2020-04-01

Completion

2020-04-01

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations