Enhancing existing formal home care to improve and maintain functional status in older adults: Results of a feasibility study on the implementation of Care to Move (CTM) in an Irish healthcare setting

Abstract

Background: Care To Move (CTM) provides a series of consistent ‘movement prompts’ to embed into existing movements of daily living. We explored the feasibility of incorporating CTM approaches in home care settings.

Methods: Feasibility study of the CTM approach in older adults receiving home care. Recruitment, retention and attrition (three time points), adherence, costs to deliver and data loss analyzed and differentiated pre-and post-the Covid-19 pandemic. Secondary outcomes, including functional status, physical activity, balance confidence, quality of life, cost to implement CTM.

Results: Fifty-five home care clients (69.6% of eligible sample) participated. Twenty were unable to start due to Covid-19 disruptions and health issues, leaving 35 clients recruited, mostly women (85.7%), mean age 82.8 years. Covid disruption impacted on the study, there was 60% retention to T2 assessments (8-weeks) and 13 of 35 (37.1%) completed T3 assessments (6-months). There were improvements with small to medium effect sizes in quality of life, physical function, balance confidence and self-efficacy. Managers were supportive of the roll out of CTM. The implementation cost was estimated at €280 per carer and annual running costs at €75 per carer.

Conclusion: Embedding CTM within home support services is acceptable and feasible. Data gathered can power a definitive trial.

Rights

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Cite as

Downloadable citations

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191811148

Repository URI

https://researchonline.gcu.ac.uk/en/publications/619cae52-30df-4dc6-a3c9-7f1512f33341