Fully-funded PhD - Prehabilitation for individuals awaiting urgent heart transplantation

Come and join a vibrant, growing doctoral community with access to state-of-the-art facilities at the Institute of Sport.  

Heart transplantation (HT) is the gold standard treatment for selected patients with end-stage heart failure. The median waiting time for an urgent HT in the UK is 47 days. These long wait times will lead to long periods of immobilisation, creating the perfect environment conducive to loss of muscle mass, strength and function. In turn, this may lead to an increase in post-operative complications and length of hospital stay. Despite evidence for outpatient prehabilitation prior to HT, there is a lack of evidence for the benefits of exercise in the hospitalized urgent heart transplant group. Existing anecdotal reports are all that exist in inpatient HT.

As such, this studentship will investigate the feasibility of a prehabilitation intervention in those awaiting an urgent heart transplant. 

Project aims and objectives

The aim is to develop and test the feasibility of a prehabilitation intervention for patients awaiting an urgent heart transplant. 

To achieve this, we will: 

• Co-create a prehabilitation intervention with heart transplant patients (Phase 1). 
• Assess the feasibility of the prehabilitation intervention (Phase II).