Eat Walk Engage: a successful RBWH program helping patients stay mobile

The Eat Walk Engage program has been a tremendous success at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, with evidence showing simple measures such as better
mobility and keeping minds active can reduce delirium in older patients.

The Clinician Research Fellowship has enabled physician Dr Alison Mudge to take the next step with her research into delirium prevention and extend the scope of implementing better practice.

“Delirium affects around one in three older people in hospital but the condition still under recognised by many medical, nursing and allied health professionals,” Dr Mudge said.

“It increases risks in falls, complications, length of hospital stays, higher risk of going to a nursing home, increase in risk of death and there is even compelling research that it increases the risk of dementia.

“The Eat Walk Engage program focuses on the small things that are fundamental to good care. It helps staff encourage and assist our patients to be mobile, eat and drink enough, and have things to keep their minds active — things that are often taken for granted but often missed.”

The Clinician Research Fellowship will provide Dr Mudge time to think about how to translate the work that she’s doing at RBWH into a whole lot of smaller, middle sized, larger, rural and city hospitals around Australia.

“It really is an enormous opportunity for our team to lead change and deliver better care to older patients on the ward through team-based and evidence-based practices which reduce delirium,” she said.