Assessment, Monitoring and Optimisation of Prehabilitation Patients Using Wearable Fitness Trackers

Plain-language summary

Prehabilitation is the use of exercise prior to surgery to improve peoples' fitness, which leads to improved outcomes of surgery. This service is now being run remotely, however, there is little existing evidence to support the best practice for this. Currently, baseline fitness is assessed remotely using either a sit to stand test or a step test. Once completed people are prescribed regular exercises and asked to exercise to a level of intensity using a measure called Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE). However, these measurements may not be reliable. We are carrying out a study to assess if another waking test (modified Rockport test) and asking patients to exercise to a target heart rate are better measures of assessing baseline fitness and exercise intensity. All participants will receive weekly telephone calls to check their progress and be provided with a wrist worn fitness tracker (Fitbit). Participants will be randomised to one of two groups. The only difference between the groups will be the way the exercise is prescribed. In one group participants will be asked to complete the exercises to an exercise level they find "somewhat hard". The other group will be asked to complete the exercises to maintain a set heart rate. All participants will be asked to complete an activity log (submitted weekly) as an online form. A small group of people (maximum 10) will be asked if they would like to complete an in-person baseline fitness assessment also, this is optional. This study runs for up to eight weeks with participation ending after eight weeks or at the time of surgery, whichever is sooner. In the final week of participation, participants will be asked to complete an online questionnaire about their experience of using a wearable fitness tracker during the prehabilitation programme.

Who can participate

What they're measuring

Trial details