A Novel Telehealth Exercise Program Designed for Rural Survivors of Cancer With Cancer-Related Fatigue: Single-Arm Feasibility Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Exercise interventions are among the best-known interventions for cancer-related fatigue (CRF). Rural survivors of cancer, however, report specific barriers to engaging in exercise programs and lack overall access to effective programs. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this investigation was to assess the feasibility of a novel telehealth exercise program designed specifically for rural survivors of cancer with CRF. METHODS: A single-arm clinical trial of the BfitBwell Telehealth Program was performed. Based on an established clinical program, this adapted 12-week program addressed barriers previously reported by rural survivors by providing synchronous videoconference exercise sessions (2 per program), asynchronous exercise sessions using a personal training smartphone or internet app (3-5 per week), and regular symptom (CRF) monitoring using automated emailed surveys (every 2 weeks). Personalized exercise prescriptions containing aerobic and resistance activities were implemented by cancer exercise specialists. Symptom-triggered synchronous sessions were initiated for participants failing to improve in CRF, as identified by a reference chart of CRF improvements observed during a supervised exercise program. Eligible participants were adult survivors of any cancer diagnosis who had completed treatment with curative intent in the past 12 months or had no planned changes in treatment for the duration of the study, lived in a rural area, and were currently experiencing CRF. Feasibility was assessed by objective measures of recruitment, data collection, intervention acceptability and suitability, and preliminary evaluations of participant responses. CRF was the primary clinical outcome (assessed using the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue Scale [FACIT-Fatigue]) and was measured before, after, and 6 months after program completion. RESULTS: In total, 19 participants enrolled in the study, 16 initiated the exercise program, and 15 completed the program. A total of 14 participants were recruited through internet advertisements, and the total recruitment rate peaked at 5 participants per month. Participants completed 100% of initial and final assessments (30 assessments across all participants) and 93% (70/75 possible surveys across all participants) of emailed surveys and attended 97% (29/30 possible sessions across all participants) of synchronous exercise sessions. In total, 6 participants initiated symptom-triggered sessions, with 6 of 7 initiated sessions attended. The mean FACIT-Fatigue scores significantly improved (P=.001) by 11.2 (SD 6.8) points following the completion of the program. A total of 13 participants demonstrated at least a minimal clinically important difference in FACIT-Fatigue scores (≥ +3 points) at this time. FACIT-Fatigue scores did not significantly change from program completion to 6-month follow-up (n=13; mean change -1.1, SD 3.4 points; P=.29). CONCLUSIONS: Results from this investigation support the feasibility of the BfitBwell Telehealth Program and a subsequent efficacy trial. Novel program components also provide potential models for improving exercise program efficacy and efficiency through asynchronous exercise prescription and symptom monitoring. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04533165; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04533165.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".