Strength-based Tailored-Exercise Program at Home for Geriatric Patients
The Effects of a Strength-based Tailored-Exercise Program at Home (STEP@Home) on Health Outcomes of Geriatric Patients at Risk of Hospitalization-associated Functional Decline: A Sequential Mixed-method Study
The University of Hong Kong
256 participants
May 23, 2025
INTERVENTIONAL
Conditions
Summary
This study focuses on the "Strength-based Tailored-Exercise Program at Home (STEP@Home)" aimed at improving health outcomes for geriatric patients at risk of hospitalization-associated functional decline. It is a sequential mixed-method study that combines quantitative and qualitative approaches.
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria6
- i) aged 60 or above
- ii) has an acute hospitalization and the length of hospital stay is of ≥ 2 days2,
- iii) has risk of functional decline in 3 months following hospitalization as measured by the Screening for High-Risk Patients (SHERPA) score of \>3.5. SHERPA is a brief measure to identify the high risk by screening for the risk factors, including old age, poor health perception, IADL dysfunction, mild cognitive impairment and fall in the previous year.
- iv) discharged home without any referral for exercise-based rehabilitation
- v) has a Smartphone to access video calls
- vi) consented to participate.
Exclusion Criteria4
- i) admitted with a disabling condition leading to significant functional loss such as stroke,)
- ii) bed-bound or chair bound
- iii) with conditions contradictory to exercise training (e.g., acute muscular-skeletal problem, acute and unstable cardio-respiratory disease, etc),
- iv) engaging in moderate or vigorous exercise (\>60min/week) in the past 6 months.
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Interventions
The 20-week STEP@Home is a multi-component exercise training program designed to recondition the functional status of older adults in the post-discharge period and to develop long-term exercise engagement. The content is developed based on the recommendations from a scope review and the Vivifrail exercise guideline on home-based exercise for older adults , with expert input from the research team including geriatricians in frailty management, exercise physiologist, nursing academicians in aged care research. Three design characteristics, including an empowerment approach (Funnell \& Anderson, 2004), lifestyle-integrated functional exercises (Weber et al., 2018), and an optimized tele-platform, are incorporated into the exercise program to enhance such therapeutic benefit.
The control group will receive a general education delivered by the RA during the first home visit, including general post-discharge knowledge related to frailty, nutrition, mental health, and sleep hygiene, all information are publicly accessible no explicit information related to exercise or physical activity will be included. Five monthly telephone calls will be made to record the information related to the general health of the client at week 4th , 8th, 12th ,16th, and 20th. The RA will make home visit for data collection at 12th, 20th and 32nd week endpoints. The RA will also review the post-discharge planning of the client and record information about referral to any social and health care service. The controls will receive a HK$50 supermarket coupon as incentive, and the same will be applied to the intervention group.
Locations(1)
View Full Details on ClinicalTrials.gov
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NCT06820021