RESilience in Hip frActure Patients measured with the Eforto(R) measurement & monitoring system

Personalisation of treatment requires a balanced judgement of present health
risks or diseases and the resilience of the individual to prevent that
disease or recover from it. This judgement is now largely based on the clinical
judgement of the physician. However, in the context of frailty and
multimorbidity, judging the person*s recovery capacity can be challenging.
Fatiguability appears to be a useful marker for changes in health and
recovery capacity. In this study, we aim to evaluate whether fatiguability
measured during hospital admission is a good predictor for recovery capacity
in older adults admitted to the geriatric medicine department.
Traditionally, fatiguability is measured using an anologue vigorimeter. This
method requires a trained professional and is sensitive to
measurement error. This makes this method less suitable for recurrent
completion in the context of daily care at a busy clinical ward. Therefore, in
this
study we use the eforto® system, which comprises of a rubber balloon connected
with an app on a smartphone and cloud platform for data storage
and monitoring. The healtcare professional/researcher can muscle fatigability
easily with eforto(R), because the data will be stored automatically and is
presented via the app.

To evaluate the validity of grip work and self-perceived fatigue measured with
the eforto® system for monitoring hip fracture recovery and insight in
resilience.

This study is a prognostic cohort study, during which we will evaluate if daily
measurements of grip work and self-perceived fatigue in patients with an acute
hip fracture are a reliable method for monitoring and predicting recovery, and
getting more insight in how resilient a patient is. For the current study,
daily muscle fatigability measurements and two self-perceived wellbeing and
fatigue questions will be added, and for baseline measurements The Older Person
and Informal Caregiver Survey short-form (TOPICS-SF) and the Multidimensional
Fatigue Inventory (MFI-20) questionnaires will be asked. These measurements
will be conducted twice daily during admission supervised by a researcher. The
question about self-perceived fatigue is asked twice a day.

During this study, we will make use of mostly data that is already being
collected as a part of the standard clinical care. In this study, we will add
daily fatiguability tests and self-perceived fatigue, which take an additional
two times 5-10 minutes per day (duration depends on the time the patient is
able to continue to squeeze, thus the tests takes longer for a fitter patient).
Next to this, two questionnaires will be administered as a baseline
measurement, with an expected duration of 10 minutes per questionnaire. These
will not be administered on the same day, so that we will not have sessions
that are too long or intense. Moreover, we will ask the questions so they will
not have to read it themselves if they do not want to. The questionnaires and
tests are administered by the researcher at the patients* ward. For the
follow-up measurements, we will use the day during which the patients are
already invited back for a regular follow-up measurement as part of the
standard clinical care.

Background information (e.g. disease history) will be derived from the medical
records to minimise the burden for the patient. Prior research with the eforto®
system on our ward showed that patients are capable of, and can endure,
completing the test with
supervision of the researcher. Patients appreciated obtaining insight in their
physical recovery. The risks are low. In case of an injury (e.g. wrist
fracture) or pain (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis) in the hands, the test will be
omitted.