Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) causes narrowing of the blood vessels, reducing blood flow to the lower limbs. Severely diminished blood flow causes constant leg pain day and night and is often accompanied by ulceration and gangrene. This stage is classed as Critical Limb Threatening Ischaemia (CLTI) and not only is there a threat of losing a limb, it carries with it the increased risk of stroke, heart attack and mortality.
Revascularisation surgery aims to increase blood flow, reduce pain and preserve the limb but what else can be done to improve patient outcomes?

A James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership recently listed “improving outcomes” and “better education” in its top 5 research priorities, so we want to assess if an Exercise and Education Programme will benefit individuals after they have had revascularisation surgery for CLTI.

We will be running a feasibility study primarily to assess if individual’s uptake to, adhere to and accept an Exercise and Education Programme and also assess for improvements in physical function and quality of life. We then plan to run a fully randomised control trial to assess the true potential of this intervention.

There are currently no specific guidelines for CLTI patients post surgery so we will be asking the experts to help us design our Exercise and Education Programme. We are currently conducting a modified Delphi study comprising of 3 rounds. The first 2 rounds consist of surveys followed on by a workshop to finalise the design of our programme. If you are an individual with CLTI or a health professional you are considered an expert and your opinion counts.
Click on the link below to take part in the survey and register interest in attending the workshop
[survey is not currently live]
For a paper copy of the survey email
[email protected].

You can keep up to date with the progress of our research in the News section below.