Digital Pathway to Healthy Aging: Sarcopenia-Frailty Integrated Training

The University of Hong Kong (HKU)

Status: Begins enrollment this month

Conditions: Fall Prevention in Healthy Aging; Sarcopenia in Elderly; Malnutrition Elderly; Frailty; Sarcopenia

Treatments: Behavioral: Waitlist Control; Behavioral: Digital Pathway to Healthy Aging: Sarcopenia-Frailty Integrated Training program (D-Path-HA: S-FIT)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT07345832

D-Path-HA: S-FIT

Details and patient eligibility

About

Sarcopenia and frailty prevention and management are highly prioritized goals in the Healthy Aging agenda. The study aims to evaluate the effects and implementation of the digital critical pathway to improve sarcopenia and frailty, reduce fall risk, and increase health-related quality of life among community-dwelling older adults with risk of, or diagnosed with, sarcopenia and frailty

Full description

Population ageing is accelerating globally and regionally, widening the gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, mainly due to late-life declines in physical function and mobility (Guo et al., 2022). Sarcopenia and frailty are major age-associated public health issues that contribute to a decline in functional ability, increased fall risks, and mortality (Lee et al., 2022; Petermann-Rocha et al., 2021). Nutrition and physical activity integrated interventions are recommended as primary treatment for sarcopenia and frailty (Park & Lee, 2023). However, current interventions are often generic, resulting in non-precise, non-personalized interventions, usually failing to accommodate individual differences in baseline strength and mobility, nutrition status, comorbidities, preferences, and home environments (Tighe et al., 2020). Consequently, interventions are complex to personalise, adjustments are delayed, and adherence is suboptimal, undermining real-world effectiveness. Future community-based health agendas should prioritize long-term care that removes access barriers (such as mobility and transportation) and transitions from generic care to precision personalization.

The World Health Organisation's Decade of Healthy Ageing and the Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) framework provide a practice anchor to maintain intrinsic capacity through person-centred assessment, individualised goal-setting, and continuous follow-up. Within this paradigm, sarcopenia and frailty management apply ICOPE via protocol-driven critical pathways (Sum et al., 2022)-structured decision support that links risk assessment to tailored prescriptions and follow-up-can standardise quality while enabling precise personalisation across diverse home settings.

Digital health interventions have expanded their capabilities to include remote exercise prescription, microlearning, reminders, and tele-coaching, with evidence of benefits for physical activity, fitness, body composition, and patient-reported outcomes (De Santis et al., 2023). Utilising a user-friendly digital tool to streamline functional assessments and develop personalised health plans is a promising approach.

A digital platform-enabled intervention, grounded in the WHO ICOPE framework and a protocol-driven critical pathway, is proposed to identify care needs among community-dwelling older adults. This tool will allow healthcare providers to accurately assess individual needs and tailor interventions in exercise and nutrition, ensuring a focused, effective approach to combating sarcopenia and frailty in older adults.

Enrollment: 200 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 60+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• aged 60 or above
• Pseudo-Sarcopenia/Sarcopenia: SARC-CaIF ≥ 11, AND (Grip Strength on dominant hand (male <28 kg, female <18 kg), OR Chair Stand Test (5 times) ≥ 12 seconds, OR Short Physical Performance Battery Score ≤ 9; OR relative appendicular skeletal mass/ height (Men: <7 kg/m2; women: <5.7 kg/m2) ); AND/OR Prefrail/ frail based on the Edmonton Frail Scale Score ≥ 6.
• consent to participate

Exclusion criteria

• having conditions contradictory to physical activity
• engaging in other ongoing physical activity and nutrition programs

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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200 participants in 2 patient groups

Digital Pathway to Healthy Aging: Sarcopenia-Frailty Integrated Training program

Experimental group

Description:

This digital program will address sarcopenia and frailty with a 12-week integrated intervention based on integrated exercise, nutrition, and fall-prevention.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Digital Pathway to Healthy Aging: Sarcopenia-Frailty Integrated Training program (D-Path-HA: S-FIT)

Waitlist Control

Active Comparator group

Description:

The control group will receive general education on nutrition and physical activity guidelines for older adults, and the same pathway intervention will be applied to the control group after all data collection

Treatment:

Behavioral: Waitlist Control