Recovery From Disability After Geriatric-home Rehabilitation Versus Standard of Care: Pilot Study (RECOVER@HOME)

Universitaire Ziekenhuizen KU Leuven

Status: Completed

Conditions: Disability Physical

Treatments: Other: The Geriatric Activation Program (GAPP) Home version; Other: Standard of care

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06404138

KCE22-1383 (Other Grant/Funding Number)

S65872

Details and patient eligibility

About

At discharge after a hospitalization, many older people are not as able as before their hospital stay and have difficulty performing their daily activities at home. For example, washing and dressing themselves, housework or shopping are often more difficult after discharge from hospital. However, most older people do not receive any support in regaining their physical status and self-reliance. As a result, they often need permanent help from informal or professional caregivers. Their quality of life is also impacted and they have an increased risk of new hospital admissions.

Rehabilitation centers and hospital rehabilitation wards help the elderly to regain their daily functioning, but the number of places is very limited. This means that support for home rehabilitation is necessary for the vast majority of older people (almost 82,000 people per year). However, most of the time there is no support for home rehabilitation and the effect of such home rehabilitation programs has been little studied. Although studies show that home rehabilitation can improve physical functioning, the effect on impairments in daily activities and the quality of life of older people are not clear.

In a future multicenter RCT, the investigators want to study whether training and guidance by a physiotherapist contributes to the recovery of older people after discharge from hospital.

Patients will either receive standard care after hospitalization discharge, or intensive guidance from a physiotherapist. The patients guided by the physiotherapist are trained and supervised three times a week, for six weeks, to improve their muscle strength, balance, walking and mobility. The aim of the intensive home rehabilitation program is that the individual benefits from it in the longer term. Therefore, whether individuals who received the program are less limited in their daily functioning than those who did not receive the intensive rehabilitation program is checked after six months. In addition, the quality of life, physical functioning and healthcare costs for these two groups are also compared.

To ensure that the study is feasible, a small pilot study will first be performed. Here, the aim is to assess the feasibility of recruitment (screening and retaining participants, reasons for refusal and participant profiles), study procedures and intervention. This includes time registration by the study team and physiotherapists, assessment of study burden and experiences with the execution of the protocol. The findings of this pilot study will help deciding about progressing to a future definitive RCT.

Enrollment: 15 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 75+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 75 years of age or older;
• disability (i.e., dependent in one or more activities of daily living) at hospital discharge;
• rehabilitation potential;
• capable of giving informed consent, and also giving their consent;

Exclusion criteria

• discharged to a nursing home or rehabilitation centre;
• receiving palliative care;
• enrolled in a specialised rehabilitation programme, e.g. cardiac rehabilitation, stroke rehabilitation, respiratory rehabilitation for COPD, and oncology rehabilitation;
• in active follow-up with a physical therapist, and for whom participation in the intervention would be too demanding or would compromise the integrity of the therapy and its anticipated outcomes.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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15 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention group

Experimental group

Description:

Receives 18 physiotherapy sessions at home over 6 weeks according to the Geriatric Activation program Pellenberg (GAPP, see intervention)

Treatment:

Other: The Geriatric Activation Program (GAPP) Home version

Control group

Other group

Description:

Older persons in the control group receive the standard of care, without any restrictions. This implies that some of the older persons in the control group could receive physical therapy, but the standard of care implies that although geriatricians regularly prescribe physical therapy the therapy is actually not started in most cases. Therefore, physical therapy will not often be delivered in the control group, and if it is delivered it will be less structured and at lower intensity and/or frequency. Moreover, physical therapy delivered to participants in the control group will not be supported by a targeted rehabilitation plan and a specific training for the therapists.

Treatment:

Other: Standard of care