Multicomponent Exercise to Prevent Hospitalization-Associated Disability

General Objective

To determine whether an intervention consisting of a multicomponent physical exercise program based on strength, balance, and aerobic training can prevent hospitalization-associated disability in adults aged 75 years and older admitted for acute medical conditions, while improving functional and cognitive capacity.

Specific Objectives

• To analyze and identify the patient subgroups that derive the greatest benefit from the intervention in order to optimize healthcare resource allocation (e.g., frail patients, patients with cognitive impairment, malnourished patients), and to characterize these subgroups.
• To identify the sociodemographic, clinical, functional, and cognitive characteristics associated with greater responsiveness to the intervention, as well as the type of intervention that provides the greatest benefit.
• To integrate clinical and molecular approaches through the assessment of epigenetic and inflammatory biomarkers, enabling the evaluation of parameters that have not previously been incorporated into studies of this kind.

Inclusion criteria

• Age equal to or greater than 75 years, admitted to the acute care unit for medical conditions.

Exclusion criteria

• Explicit refusal expressed verbally or refusal to sign the informed consent by the patient/main caregiver/legal guardian or inability to obtain it.
• Life expectancy of less than 3 months or terminal oncological or non -oncological disease.
• Inability to follow up.
• Inability to participate in a multicomponent exercise program.
• Medical contraindication to exercise.
• Major neurocognitive disorder at moderate to severe stage (GDS - Fast Reisberg 5-7).
• Moderate to severe disability (measured by the Barthel Index (BI <60)). Expected hospital stay of less than 6 days.