Improving Monitoring of Patients Receiving Case Management

NCT ID: NCT01597882

Last Updated: 2014-02-19

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Total Enrollment: 114 participants
• Study Classification: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2012-10-31
• Study Completion Date: 2013-12-31

Brief Summary

The UK population is ageing and the likelihood of having a long term health condition increases with age. Three out of every five people over 60 in the UK have a long term condition. Ageing and having a long term condition increases the chance of having difficulty being independent and carrying out day to day activities. In recent years the NHS has made a greater effort to prevent these difficulties in patients with long term conditions.

One approach to help patients with long term conditions is case management, where by (usually) a community matron visits patients at home, looking for early warning signs of any worsening of their condition and arranging care and treatment. But the current way this is done varies across the country and hospital admissions are still rising. In order to give the right care at the right time, effective monitoring is needed to help the community matron detect and act on changes in the patient's condition.

Loss of muscle strength in old age is linked to a poor health, but it is not known whether simple measures of muscle strength could be used to detect and predict declines in health in the short to medium term to help maintain independence and prevent an accident or hospital admission.

The aim of this study is to look at whether monitoring muscle strength in case managed patients is practical, acceptable and useful in detecting when a patient's condition worsens. Each patient will be visited by the researcher in their home twice in the first week, then once every two weeks, for another 5 weeks, to carry out three simple measures of grip and respiratory strength, and complete questionnaires about their health and ability to carry out day to day activities. Each visit will last about 20 to 30 minutes. A small group of clinicians will be asked about their views of the strength measures. Database analysis will allow descriptive data on the patient group to be gathered and analysed.

Conditions

Multiple Conditions; Coronary Heart Disease; Diabetes; Hypertension; Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Study Design

• Observational Model Type: COHORT

Study Groups

Case managed patients

Patients aged 65 years and over receiving community case management.

No interventions assigned to this group

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Patients aged 65 years or over receiving health case management in the community.

Exclusion Criteria

1. Enrolled in any other research study

2. Preclude consent:

• Significant cognitive impairment resulting in lack of capacity to consent. b. Unable to communicate without significant aids e.g. Non-English speaking.

3. Preclude participation/ collection of data

• Significant emotional distress or psychotic illness active within the last 6 months.
• Receiving end of life care.
• Current illness that would preclude data collection.
• Upper limb pathology that would limit participation e.g. bone fracture within the previous 6 months.
• Identified as high risk patients with regards to lone working safety by their case manager.

• Minimum Eligible Age: 65 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

University of Southampton

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Nicola Barnes

Post-graduate Research Student

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Nicola Barnes, MPharm

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

University of Southampton

Locations

Solent NHS Trust

Portsmouth, , United Kingdom

Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust

Southampton, , United Kingdom

Countries

United Kingdom

Other Identifiers

1409-ERGO

Identifier Type: OTHER

Identifier Source: secondary_id

8550

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id