Clinical trial NCT03175783: Use of Wearable Activity Tracker in Elderly Undergoing Abdominal Surgery
Official title: Use of Wearable Activity Tracker to Monitor and Increase Mobility for Elderly Undergoing Abdominal Surgery: A Randomized Control Trial
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: UNKNOWN
Phase: NA
Conditions: Fitness Trackers
Early Ambulation
Surgery
Health Services for the Aged
Lead sponsor: University of Malaya
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2017-06-05
Enrollment: 60
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 60
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: CROSSOVER
Primary purpose: SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Brief summary: Early mobilization is an important element in Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS). It reduces risk of conditions which are related to prolonged bed rest such as deep vein thrombosis, lung atelectasis, pneumonia, and sacral sore. (Appelboom, Taylor et al. 2015) It is also associated with shortened length of hospital stay, improved survival, and reduction in health care cost.

However, "early mobilization" was not defined consistently in previous study. Some authors recommend patients to get out of bed and ambulate on the day of operation while others define as getting out of bed more than 2 hours on day of operation and up to 8 hours on second post-operative day. (Wolk, Meissner et al. 2017) The inconsistency in definition is partly due to the inability to quantify patients' mobility which is usually self-reported by patients and is subjective.(Eva van der Meij 2017) This is especially true for elderly patient in whom preoperative mobility varies significantly between individuals. For this reason, the approach of early mobilization in elderly should be goal directed and individualized according to their preoperative mobility and functional status.

The aim of current study is to monitor and motivate elderly patients undergoing abdominal surgery to increase postoperative mobilization by using Fitbit Zip activity tracker.

Detailed description: This is a randomized, controlled, single center trial comparing the use of activity tracker with and without automatic feedback in improving postoperative mobility of elderly patients undergoing abdominal surgery.

Selected subjects will be randomized into treatment and control groups in a ratio of 1:1.

Patients will be randomized upon enrollment using computer generated random assignment. Treatment group will be put on activity tracker device (Fitbit Zip) with automatic step counts feedback throughout the study. Meanwhile, control group will be put on same activity tracker without automatic feedback for same duration of intervention. The Fitbit Zip tracker (Fitbit Inc, San Francisco, California USA) is a validated commercially available activity tracker and its use has been proven accurate in elderly patients.

Subjects from both treatment and control group will be put on wristband starting from one week before the scheduled operation until 7 post-operative days. Patients will be instructed to wear the wristband continuously 24 hours per day except during water based activity. The treatment group will receive normal wristband with indicator showing steps count, distance, and calories. Meanwhile, the control group will receive Fitbit Zip with a display covered with adhesive tape and will not receive automatic feedback on the mobility from the device.

At the end of the intervention, all the data will be retrieved from the Fitbit Zip via Fitbit Connect software 2.0. On top of that, data on patients' demographic, types of operation, operative findings, length of hospital stay and postoperative complication will also be recorded in case report form.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Adult age \>60 years old
* Patients electively scheduled for abdominal surgery includes upper gastro-intestinal surgery (subtotal gastrectomy, partial gastrectomy), colorectal surgery (hemicolectomy, anterior resection, sigmoidectomy, abdominal perineal resection), and hepatobiliary surgery ( pancreatectomy, cholecystectomy, hepatectomy)
* Able to provide informed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

* Cognitive impairment
* Neurological deficit which requires assistance in mobilization (e.g stroke, post limb amputation)
* Emergency surgery
* Prolonged ventilation \>24 hours
* Prolonged stay in ICU \>48 hours
* Lack of compliance to wearing wrist band
* Allergic to wristband

Primary outcomes:
measure: Postoperative mobility measured by mean step counts
timeFrame: 14 days
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Percent change in postoperative mobility
timeFrame: 14 days
measure: Effect of activity tracker with automatic feedback on length of hospital stay
timeFrame: up to one month
measure: Number of patients with post operative complications
timeFrame: up to one month
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Kuching
country: Malaysia
facility: Sarawak General Hospital
state: Sarawak
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Malaya
name: Wong Koh Ging, MD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Appelboom G, Taylor BE, Bruce E, Bassile CC, Malakidis C, Yang A, Youngerman B, D'Amico R, Bruce S, Bruyere O, Reginster JY, Dumont EP, Connolly ES Jr. Mobile Phone-Connected Wearable Motion Sensors to Assess Postoperative Mobilization. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2015 Jul 28;3(3):e78. doi: 10.2196/mhealth.3785.
citation: Cook DJ, Thompson JE, Prinsen SK, Dearani JA, Deschamps C. Functional recovery in the elderly after major surgery: assessment of mobility recovery using wireless technology. Ann Thorac Surg. 2013 Sep;96(3):1057-61. doi: 10.1016/j.athoracsur.2013.05.092.
citation: van der Meij E, van der Ploeg HP, van den Heuvel B, Dwars BJ, Meijerink WJHJ, Bonjer HJ, Huirne JAF, Anema JR. Assessing pre- and postoperative activity levels with an accelerometer: a proof of concept study. BMC Surg. 2017 May 12;17(1):56. doi: 10.1186/s12893-017-0223-0.
citation: Gualtieri L, Rosenbluth S, Phillips J. Can a Free Wearable Activity Tracker Change Behavior? The Impact of Trackers on Adults in a Physician-Led Wellness Group. JMIR Res Protoc. 2016 Nov 30;5(4):e237. doi: 10.2196/resprot.6534.
citation: Paul SS, Tiedemann A, Hassett LM, Ramsay E, Kirkham C, Chagpar S, Sherrington C. Validity of the Fitbit activity tracker for measuring steps in community-dwelling older adults. BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med. 2015 Jul 8;1(1):e000013. doi: 10.1136/bmjsem-2015-000013. eCollection 2015.
citation: Wolk S, Meissner T, Linke S, Mussle B, Wierick A, Bogner A, Sturm D, Rahbari NN, Distler M, Weitz J, Welsch T. Use of activity tracking in major visceral surgery-the Enhanced Perioperative Mobilization (EPM) trial: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials. 2017 Feb 21;18(1):77. doi: 10.1186/s13063-017-1782-1.
citation: Dupont WD, Plummer WD Jr. Power and sample size calculations for studies involving linear regression. Control Clin Trials. 1998 Dec;19(6):589-601. doi: 10.1016/s0197-2456(98)00037-3.