Independence in Self Care - A Program Focused on Nursing Care

This study is a randomized clinical trial conducted in a medical ward of an acute 580-bedded teaching hospital. One hundred fifty-eight older acute medical patients will be blindly randomly allocated to the control group or intervention group. The intervention will consist of a twice daily walking training, plus privileging trips to the toilet by walking and all daytime meals seated. Differences between groups will be measured at baseline (admission) and discharge. As primary outcomes, we defined the length of stay and the independence level. The independence level will be assessed at baseline (admission) and discharge by two distinct methods: through the Barthel Index and the Patient Classification Systems(PCS).