Clinical and cost-effectiveness of an in-home personalised health promotion intervention enabling independence in older people with mild frailty (‘HomeHealth’): A Randomised Controlled Trial

As people age, they may develop a number of health conditions that impact on how they feel and their ability to manage independently. For some it can mean they start to become frail, with less energy, appetite and muscle strength and difficulty in managing household tasks such as shopping or cooking. Few health services exist to help and prevent it getting worse.
We worked with older people, health/social care professionals, voluntary sector, policy-makers and experts to design a new service, HomeHealth. This service aims to support older people maintain their current strengths and activities they enjoy, and reduce the impact of feeling tired, low or anxious, poor appetite, memory concerns, weakness or low muscle strength. Our pilot, with 51 older people, consisted of around 6 home visits over 6 months. Our service was well-received, showed potential to help people stay independent and feel better, was of modest cost and merited a larger study (trial).