ACTIVITY AND MOBILITY USING TECHNOLOGY REHABILITATION TRIAL- SUPPORT AND HEALTH COACHING DURING THE COMMUNITY PROGRAM FOR THE FIRST 80 PARTICIPANTS

Sherrington C.¹, Hassett L.^1,2, van den Berg M.³, Rabie A.⁴, Chagpar S.¹, Weber H.³, Wong S.⁴, Schurr K.⁵, McCluskey A.², Lindley R.¹, Crotty M.³, Treacy D.⁶

¹University of Sydney, George Institute for Global Health, Sydney, Australia, ²University of Sydney, Australia, Faculty of Health Sciences, Sydney, Australia, ³Flinders University, Department of Rehabilitation, Aged and Extended Care, Adelaide, Australia, ⁴South Western Sydney Local Health District, Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit, Liverpool Hospital, Sydney, Australia, ⁵South Western Sydney Local Health District, Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital, Sydney, Australia, ⁶University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Background: Technologies to enable ongoing exercise are likely to become increasingly important in the future as the proportion of older people in the population increases and resources to provide rehabilitation care become more limited.

Purpose: To evaluate how much, the type and mode of support provided to rehabilitation participants using technology in the community as part of the Activity and MObility UsiNg Technology (AMOUNT) rehabilitation trial.

Methods: Design: Process evaluation of the post-hospital intervention data for 80 participants (mean age 72 (SD18)) from a currently recruiting randomised controlled trial. Intervention: Additional to standard care, prescribed according to a protocol which matches games/exercises from eight technologies, to the participant’s current mobility limitations. Technologies include commercially available devices and android/iOS applications (Nintendo Wii; Xbox kinect; Fitbit; Runkeeper app), rehabilitation-specific devices (Humac; Fysiogaming), and technologies developed for the trial (Stepping Tiles; exercise iPAD apps; Smartphone walking app). Participants were initially given and taught to use the technologies during inpatient rehabilitation. They were then discharged home with the technologies and encouraged to use them for 30-60 minutes at least 5 days a week for the remainder of the trial (6-months after randomisation). The trial protocol required the research physiotherapist to provide support to participants during the post-hospital phase every 1–2 weeks using a tailored health coaching approach via telephone, email, home visit or videoconference. Outcomes: Audit of research physiotherapist intervention notes recording frequency, duration, mode, reason for contact and topics covered during health coaching.

Results: Participants received community intervention for an average of 159 (SD21) days. Participants and physiotherapists had on average 15 (SD6) contact moments (approximately every 12 days), of which 8 were phone calls (13min duration), 6 home visits (46min duration) and 1 other (20min duration). Reasons for contact included health coaching (58%) ‘quick’ contact (19%), data collection (10%) and technology support (8%). Topics covered during health coaching sessions were objective data gathered from prescribed technologies (45%), physical activity (41%) and mobility (36%) status, adherence (40%), goal setting (26%) and technical assistance (20%).

Conclusion(s): The preliminary results suggest that using a tailored health coaching model to support technology-based rehabilitation in post-hospital settings is feasible.

Implications: Health coaching sessions can be provided remotely during post-hospital rehabilitation, limiting the need for frequent home visits.

Funding acknowledgements: This work is supported by an Australian National Health and Medical
Research Council Project Grant (APP1063751).

Topic: Disability & rehabilitation

Ethics approval: Southern Adelaide Clinical Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC), Australia and the South Western Sydney Local Health District (HREC), Australia.

All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.