Strength-based Tailored-Exercise Program at Home for Geriatric Patients

The 20-week STEP@Home is a multi-component exercise training program designed to recondition the functional status of older adults in the post-discharge period and to develop long-term exercise engagement. The content is developed based on the recommendations from a scope review and the Vivifrail exercise guideline on home-based exercise for older adults , with expert input from the research team including geriatricians in frailty management, exercise physiologist, nursing academicians in aged care research. Three design characteristics, including an empowerment approach (Funnell \& Anderson, 2004), lifestyle-integrated functional exercises (Weber et al., 2018), and an optimized tele-platform, are incorporated into the exercise program to enhance such therapeutic benefit.

The control group will receive the usual post-discharge care provided in the hospital setting, including general education on medication, basic knowledge of disease-related self-care, and/or attending regular medical follow-ups in the specialist outpatient clinics. The RA will review the client's post-discharge planning and record social and healthcare service referral information. The RA will only make home visits for data collection, and the controls will receive a HK$100 supermarket coupon as an incentive, which will be applied to the intervention group.