NCT06404138

Recovery From Disability After Geriatric-home Rehabilitation Versus Standard of Care: Pilot Study

Recovery From Disability After Geriatric-home Rehabilitation Versus Standard of Care: Pilot Study for a Randomised Multicentre Parallel Group Pragmatic Trial in Older Persons With Disability at Hospital Discharge.

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 15 (actual)
• Sponsor: Universitaire Ziekenhuizen KU Leuven · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 75 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

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.

Conditions

• Disability Physical

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	The Geriatric Activation Program (GAPP) Home version	The rehabilitation at home intervention consists of three 45 minutes session per week (total of 18 sessions) with a different focus for each session. The therapy is goal-oriented and includes functional exercises in the home where possible (e.g. transfers such as getting out of bed, walking to the toilet etc.). There are three sessions per week: 1 for training strength, 1 for training balance and 1 for speed, coordination and endurance. Each session will start with gait rehabilitation as a warming-up. For each session, a set of exercises with varying levels of difficulty is available. As rehabilitation needs are diverse, the therapist is expected to choose the most appropriate exercise and the difficulty level of the exercise for the individual older person. This also includes scaling the exercises to the individual progression of the older person.
OTHER	Standard of care	Standard of care, without any restrictions.

Timeline

• Start date: 2024-05-01
• Primary completion: 2025-01-31
• Completion: 2025-07-02
• First posted: 2024-05-08
• Last updated: 2025-11-17

Locations

2 sites across 1 country: Belgium