“For a prehab program to be successful we need to support and motivate participants and personalize the exercises to their needs,”- Dr. Daniel McIsaacA home-based prehabilitation or “prehab” program designed to help older adults with frailty recover from cancer surgery has shown promise in a randomized pilot trial, particularly for patients who had a high level of adherence to the program.
The study led by Dr. Daniel McIsaac found that patients with at least 80% adherence to the exercise program could walk further and had lower self-reported disability scores after surgery compared to those who did not participate. However, the average adherence by patients in the trial was lower than hoped, at 61%, likely because frailty often makes exercise difficult.
Based on these findings, the research team added more personalized and tailored programming to their national prehab trial at 10 sites across Canada, and they are now seeing overall adherence levels much closer to 80%.
See the full study in the British Journal of Anesthesiology and read about participant Marie Lapointe’s experience in the pilot trial, which was among the first of its kind in the world.
“For a prehab program to be successful we need to support and motivate participants and personalize the exercises to their needs,”- Dr. Daniel McIsaac, scientist and anesthesiologist at The Ottawa Hospital, Chair in Innovative Perioperative Care at the University of Ottawa
Authors: Daniel I McIsaac, Emily Hladkowicz, Gregory L Bryson, Alan J Forster, Sylvain Gagne, Allen Huang, Manoj Lalu, Luke T Lavallée, Husein Moloo, Julie Nantel, Barbara Power, Celena Scheede-Bergdahl, Carl van Walraven, Colin J.L. McCartney, Monica Taljaard.
Source: British Journal of Anesthesiology
Funding: This study was funded by the International Anesthesia Research Society and the Canadian Frailty Network, and enabled by generous donors to The Ottawa Hospital Foundation.
Core Resources: Ottawa Methods Centre
The Ottawa Hospital is a leading academic health, research and learning hospital proudly affiliated with the University of Ottawa and supported by The Ottawa Hospital Foundation.
