Reflections on the challenges of conducting an international multicentre randomized controlled trial of balance training in addition to pulmonary rehabilitation and its impact on fall incidence in people with COPD – Trials
Background Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is accepted as standard care for individuals with COPD. We conducted an international, multi-centred randomized controlled trial (RCT) to determine if adding balance training to PR would reduce the incidence of falls in people with COPD. While there have been many trials investigating the effectiveness of PR, few have involved international collaboration. Successful execution of rehabilitation trials requires a significant investment of time, staffing, and resources. With the recent completion of the Balance Training for Fall Reduction in COPD RCT, we report on the design, implementation, and execution of our trial using project management phases. We also highlight our lessons learned for consideration in future multi-centre rehabilitation trials. Methods This was a retrospective review of the planning, preparation, timelines, and personnel training involved in the execution of this study using four of the five project management phases describe
