The FLEXI Study

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Wider scale-up of the Falls Management Exercise (FaME) programme; an implementation and cost analysis study

• IRAS ID

  313018

• Contact name

  Elizabeth Orton

• Contact email

  Elizabeth.Orton@Nottingham.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of Nottingham

• Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier

  000, N/A

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 5 months, 1 days

• Research summary

  Falling can cause injury, pain, loss of confidence and independence. This is undesirable for an individual and their families, and places significant demands on health and social care services.
  Falls are not inevitable. By improving an individual’s strength and balance, alongside skills to help getting up from a fall (should this happen), the likelihood of a fall occurring or having damaging consequences, such as a long lie on the floor, can be minimised.
  The Falls Management Exercise (FaME) programme is a group-based, face-to-face, six-month exercise programme specifically aimed at improving the strength and balance of community dwelling adults aged 65 and over. Research has shown that FaME results in fewer falls, improved confidence, and reduced fear-of-falling. Despite this, FaME is still not available everywhere across England. More needs to be understood about how best to increase its availability and ensure high quality delivery.
  To improve our understanding of this, we previously studied FaME’s set-up, delivery and quality in the East Midlands. We learnt a lot about how to get FaME running and showed that the programmes worked outside of a research setting. Using learning from the East Midlands, we developed a guide for implementing FaME called the implementation toolkit. This evidence-based toolkit contains all the information needed to set up and run a FaME programme, from making the initial business case to promoting it to participants. We want to use this toolkit to see if FaME can be made more available in two new, different, regions: Greater Manchester and Devon, and review a previous location of the East Midlands and assess whether FaME works in these populations, particularly if adaptations have been made to the delivery.
  

• REC name

  London - City & East Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  22/PR/0634

• Date of REC Opinion

  20 May 2022

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion