Outcome assessments
Frailty, Respiratory muscle function
RECRUITMENT, POSTOPERATIVE COMPLICATIONS
Participants were assessed at baseline and every other week up until the day of surgery, and then again at 30- and 90-days after discharge (see Frailty was assessed according to both physical frailty and deficit accumulation models with a variety of measures to search for relevant differences between tools. Frailty measures included (a) the RAI rendering a weighted scale from 0–82 where 30–36 is prefrail and ≥37 is frail (Physical function was assessed with the (a) short physical performance battery (SPPB), a 12 point scale where a 1 point rise indicates the minimal clinically important difference (MCID) improving physical performance (Respiratory muscle function was assessed with MIP and maximal expiratory pressure (MEP) (Nutrition was assessed by the 7-item Subjective Global Assessment (SGA-7) (Adherence was assessed by abstracting patient entries in the logbooks regarding completed training exercises and diet, as well as notes recorded by the exercise physiologists during the coaching sessions.Vital status and postoperative complications were assessed by a trained nurse abstractor according to methods established by the Veteran Affairs Surgical Quality Improvement Program (Patient reported outcomes included: (a) the 20-item 6 Dimension Assessment of Quality of Life (AQol-6D) (Statistical analysis is focused on quantifying the feasibility of prehabilitation in terms of recruitment and retention of participants, adherence to the prescribed exercise, and effective assessment of all outcome measures. Secondary outcomes included changes in physical performance measures and postoperative outcomes, although we expected no detectable change in postoperative outcomes due to insufficient sample size in this feasibility trial. Within-person changes over time were estimated using linear mixed models with a fixed effect for time and a random effect for participant identity. All statistical tests were conducted using STATA version 16.0 (StataCorp) with statistical significance set at 2-sided P<0.05. Study data were collected and managed using REDCap electronic data capture tools hosted at Veterans Affairs Information Resource Center (VIReC) (