Marike van der Schaaf was awarded for a project: Rehabilitation After Critical Illness and Hospital discharge- Optimizing Units of nutrition and Exercise Therapy; REACH-OUT pilot feasibility trial. It fits extremely well within the mission of AMS and Ageing & Vitality: conducting research to optimize functioning of critically ill patients through an intervention in which exercise and nutrition is integrated. Its scientific aim is to explore the feasibility and fidelity of a personalized exercise-nutritional intervention (REACH-OUT), estimate the rate of recruitment, and explore the feasibility of collecting data and follow-up of participants to inform the design of a definitive trial. The results of this research can be translated to other patient groups with symptoms of sarcopenia due to severe illness.
The projectComputer Tomography determined sarcopenia and physical functioning in lung cancer patients applied by Marijke de Leeuwerk has also been awarded. The identification of sarcopenia is important in oncology patients, since the sarcopenic status is associated with functional impairment, increased risk of chemotherapy-related toxicities and reduced survival. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has a particularly strong association with loss of muscle mass. It is known that sarcopenia is common in lung cancer patients, and considered to be associated with poor survival. However, the impact of sarcopenia and skeletal muscle loss on physical functioning in operable lung cancer patients remains unclear. Therefore, the objective of this study is to investigate the longitudinal association between CT-determined muscle mass and recovery in physical functioning in patients after lung cancer surgery. The second aim is to investigate the effectiveness of the OPRAH (Optimal Physical Recovery After Hospitalization) intervention on muscle quantity/quality in patients after lung cancer surgery.