Stand if You Can: A Standing Intervention in Long Term Care

Stand if You Can- A Randomized Control Trial

It is currently unknown if reducing sitting time, an activity that is highly prevalent in frail older adults living in long term care (LTC) facilities, is associated with an improvement in physical capacity such as walking speed. Simple tasks such as walking speed is associated with important outcomes for residents in LTC such as autonomy and hospitalization. The investigators hypothesize that standing an additional 100 minutes per week for 5 months will result in a clinically meaningful improvement in walking speed (0.1m/sec) in LTC residents compared to residents receiving a sitting social activity.

LTC facilities from Moncton and Fredericton will be recruited, with half of the LTC facilities randomized as the intervention and half as the control group. The investigators are aiming to enrol half of the LTC in Fredericton and half in Moncton. A total of 88 residents (44 in the control group, 44 in the intervention group) will be enrolled in the program.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Resident at one of the selected LTC facilities;
• Able to provide consent or have a power of attorney agree on behalf of a resident to participate in the study;
• Able to walk for ten meters, with or without a walking aid; The main outcome is walking speed performed for a distance of 10 meters. Therefore, we want everyone who participates in the study to be able to complete the test at baseline. This way we can answer the main research question, while adhering to our sample size calculation.

Exclusion Criteria:

• If Identified by staff at the facility as too high risk for falling by participating in the intervention.