Working to Increase Stability Through Exercise
Core PI: Christopher Sciamanna, MD, MPH, Penn State College of Medicine, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center
Site PI(s):
Purpose: To test an exercise-coached intervention designed to reduce falls and fall-related injuries in older adults who have had a fall-related fracture in the past.
Goal(s): To reduce fall-related injuries in older adults.
Study Design: Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial
This 3-year study will enroll 2,100 adults who are at least 65 years old and have had a fall-related fracture. This large number of participants will ensure that we can examine the effect of the exercise coaching on key outcomes important to patients, their doctors, and insurance companies. In addition to recording fall-related injuries, we will assess muscle strength, bone strength, loneliness, depression, and use of emergency medical care.
We hypothesize that over the 3 years of the study, a larger proportion of the patients who do not receive exercise coaching (control group) will have a fracture or fall-related injury than of those who receive exercise coaching (intervention group). We predict that exercise coaching will reduce the chance of such an injury by almost half and prevent 1 such event for every 17 patients who receive coaching—an impact stronger than that of many other common prevention measures.
PaTH Partners: pending
Sponsor: PCORI
How to Participate: If you are eligible, you may be contacted by PaTH research staff.