Tackling FRAILTY: ACTIVE-AGE@home: a home-based functional exercise program for community dwelling frail older adults
Description: This study is perfectly aligned with the current health policy plan of Flanders, emphasising vulnerable people in the community, involving family and volunteers while focussing on health promotion to counter sedentary lifestyle. Despite the high level of evidence for physical activity (PA) as a countermeasure for frailty, the current Flemish standard of care does not include structural PA interventions for community-dwelling frail older adults. One barrier for this, is the high cost of supervised PA programs. This was reported by representatives of different policymaking bodies in our advisory board during the development of the present proposal. Therefore, in this pragmatic randomised controlled trial, we will consider the Flemish current standard of care for frail older adults as a control group. Intervention arm 1 reflects the state-of-the-art treatment (provided by professionals) and intervention arm 2 (provided by volunteers) aims to provide an answer to the financial burden of arm 1. The pretrajectory of this study was based on the ‘British Medical Research Council guidance’ for the development and evaluation of complex interventions. This resulted in a comprehensive, state-of-the art personalised PA programme for community-dwelling frail older adults:ACTIVE-AGE@home. The program adheres to current guidelines for PA and exercise for frail older adults and considers low-threshold and meaningful activities for the participants. The latter perfectly aligns with the complex bio-psychosocial components of frailty. We are now ready to take the next step: we will test its effect on functional ability and evaluate its cost- effectiveness when it is administered by professionals or by trained volunteers, and compare this to the care as usual in Flanders. Positive results will help frail older adults but also reduce health and social expenditures and aligns with a 'prevention and health promotion'model instead of an acute care model as it is currently.
Funder: Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
Funding type: grant
Funder scheme: FWO Applied Biomedical Research (TBM)
Start date: 2022-10-01
End date: 2026-09-30
Investigator: Wim Peersman
Institution: DOSP_Odisee
Funded outputs count: 2
Funder award ID: T002322N
OpenAlex ID: G2488958226