Examining the safety and effectiveness of a 4-week supervised exercise intervention in the treatment of frailty in patients with chronic kidney disease

Background The optimal duration of antifrailty interventions and how best to deliver them to patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) is unknown. The aim of this study was to examine the safety, feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a 4-week supervised exercise intervention on frailty in patients with CKD.Methods We conducted a prospective feasibility study involving patients with & GE;stage 3 CKD (1 patient with stage 3 CKD, 7 patients with stage 4 CKD and 17 patients with stage 5 CKD) who were either frail or prefrail according to the physical frailty phenotype and/or had a Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) score & LE;10. The exercise intervention consisted of two supervised outpatient sessions per week for 4 weeks (eight total sessions). Frailty and other study measures were assessed at baseline and after 4 weeks of exercise.Results Of the 34 participants who completed the baseline assessment and were included in the analyses, 25 (73.5%) completed the 4-week assessment. Overall, 64.0% of patients were on dialysis and 64.0% had diabetes mellitus. After 4 weeks of exercise, frailty prevalence, total SPPB scores and energy/fatigue scores improved. No adverse study-related outcomes were reported.Conclusions The 4 weeks of supervised exercise was safe, was associated with an excellent completion rate and improved frailty parameters in CKD patients with CKD. This study provides important preliminary data for a future larger prospective randomized study.Clinical Trial.gov registration: NCT03535584 We conducted a prospective, single-center, non-randomized pilot study examining the safety, feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a 4-week supervised exercise intervention on frailty in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). We enrolled 25 participants. We found that the intervention was safe, was associated with an excellent completion rate and improved frailty parameters in patients with CKD. This study provides important preliminary data for a future larger prospective randomized study.

Automated summary

This study examined the safety, feasibility, and preliminary efficacy of a 4-week supervised exercise intervention on frailty in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). The results showed that the intervention was safe, associated with an excellent completion rate, and improved frailty parameters in CKD patients. This study provides important preliminary data for future larger randomized studies.