Understanding frailty, falls and the role of exercise in Haemodialysis patients: (FLEX-HD study)
What is the purpose of the study?
Some haemodialysis patients are less resilient to additional health issues and stressors than others, and are at risk of poorer health, including falls. Exercise training may help this group of patients to ‘bounce back’ more quickly, but intradialytic exercise, which is the most common form of exercise therapy offered to people living with dialysis, may not best suited. The FLEX study will find out whether a trial of exercise intervention is feasible for less resilient haemodialysis patients and explore how the intervention should be tailored for their needs.
What does it involve and what do we you hope to find out?
We will identify less resilient patients screened, enrolled, and randomised within a prospective trial of intradialytic exercise using a validated scale. Participants will randomly receive either thrice weekly supervised intradialytic exercise over six months or usual care haemodialysis, depending on which dialysis shift they attend. We will look to see how many participants take part, remain in the study and how acceptable they find the intervention and study itself.
Additionally, less resilient patients who have fallen in the last six months will be interviewed and asked to keep a diary. These will explore participants’ experiences, their perceptions of involvement in clinical trials and their thoughts on exercise.
What’s next?
The overall results of the trial will provide a greater understanding of intervention and research delivery for this less resilient group of haemodialysis patients. These will inform the development of a tailored exercise intervention. Knowledge of patients’ experiences will also be used to enhance patient-centred care and safety. If you are interested in finding out more information about this study please contact us.
