The Southampton Mobility Volunteer programme to increase physical activity levels of older people in hospital:
a feasibility study (SoMoVe)
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Lim SER , Purkis A , Strike G , Baxter M , Rogers A , Sayer AA , Roberts HC
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Academic Geriatric Medicine and NIHR CLAHRC Wessex, University of Southampton University Hospital Southampton NHS
Foundation Trust, 4Newcastle University
BACKGROUND
What do we know?
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Older people who are admitted to hospital often have low physical activity levels1.
Some of the harmful effects of low physical activity levels in hospital may include2:
worsening physical abilities,
longer hospital stay,
higher chance of going to a nursing home
higher risk of death.
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Research has shown that using paid staff to encourage older people in hospital to be more physically
active can lower the risk of some of these harmful effects.
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In the UK, volunteers play an important role, in most hospitals, by helping out in many different ways.
There are currently no studies in the UK looking at the use of volunteers to encourage older people in hospital to be more physically active.
What is our question?
Can we train volunteers to safely encourage older people in hospital to be more active by walking more often or doing bedside exercises?
METHODS
1. Who will take part in the study?
3. Training and intervention
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Patients aged 70 years and above;
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Able to walk prior to hospital admission;
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No medical reasons to stop them from walking or exercising; and
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Able to give consent.
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2. Physical activity levels
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The StepWatch Activity Monitor (SAM) and GENEActiv
accelerometer will be used to measure the physical activity levels of
50 participants at baseline and during
Working with the hospital therapy team, we aim to develop a high
quality training programme for the volunteers.
Volunteers will be assessed after the training to ensure they are safe
and competent in carrying out their role.
Volunteers will encourage participants to walk or carry out chairbased exercise twice a day for 15 minutes, depending on their mobility
levels, during their hospital stay.
4. Interviews
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the intervention phase.
Patients, volunteers, nurses and therapists will be interviewed to
explore the acceptability of the intervention.
Results
2. Patients at baseline
1. Volunteer training
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8 volunteers trained, 5 currently actively providing exercise and
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50 patients recruited, 25 male and 25 female patients.
walking sessions to patients.
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Average age of 87 years, Average monitor wear time of 4 days.
64 walking and 44 exercise sessions delivered for 29 patients.
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Patients took 636 steps a day on average!
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Patients were most active between 8am to 12pm and 6pm to 8pm
36 sessions: Declined due to reasons such as tiredness, pain, visitors
present, and other clinical reasons.
· Between 10pm and 6am, 79% of the participants were active and took
The intervention is currently ongoing and 11 volunteers are waiting to
about 94 steps on average.
Median step count
receive training.
120
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80
60
40
An example of a mobility
Figure 1. Walking activity
session in progress.
between 6am and 10pm
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0
0600-0800 0800-1000 1000-1200 1200-1400 1400-1600 1600-1800 1800-2000 2000-2200
MOVING FORWARDS
Early findings from this study show that older people in hospital are very inactive. The description of patients’ walking activity during the day is
an interesting finding of this study which may help researchers and clinicians implement time-specific interventions to target sedentary
behaviour. Results from this study will provide helpful information regarding the use of trained volunteers in hospital to encourage older people
to be more active. This will help us plan for a larger study in the future to include all patients in the Medicine for Older People department.
This is a summary of independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research
(NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care Wessex at University
Hospital Southampton NHS FT. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily
those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.
References:
1. Brown CJ, Redden DT, Flood KL, Allman RM. The underrecognized epidemic of low mobility during hospitalization of older
adults. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2009;57(9):1660- 1665.
2. Gill TM, Allore HG, Holford TR, Guo Z. Hospitalization, restricted activity, and the development of disability among older persons. JAMA. 2004;292(17):2115-2124.