NCT02061319

Randomized Trial of Nordic Walking vs. Standard Cardiac Rehabilitation in Patients With Heart Failure

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 77 (actual)
• Sponsor: Ottawa Heart Institute Research Corporation · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The main purpose of our project is to see if a 12-week program of Nordic walking is better than standard exercise therapy for increasing exercise capacity (measured by how far people can walk in 6 minutes) and increasing quality of life (measured by having people fill out two questionnaires). We will also see if Nordic walking: improves heart performance (measured by heart ultrasound); improves how active people are (measured by an activity monitor); increases aerobic fitness (measured by a treadmill test); improves body composition (measured by waist size); and reduces hormone levels in the blood.

Detailed description

A single-site, parallel-group, randomized controlled trial will be conducted (Appendix C) at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI). Patients with stable HF referred to cardiac rehabilitation will undergo baseline assessment and then be randomly assigned (1:1) to either standard exercise therapy (consisting of regular walking and a resistance exercise program) or Nordic walking. Follow-up measures will be taken at the end of intervention (12 weeks) and after a 14-week no-intervention observation period (26 weeks). After initial randomization to treatment group, participants will be stratified by treatment group and randomly assigned to one of three follow-up measurement conditions at 12 weeks: echocardiograph and cardiopulmonary test (N=80); cardiopulmonary test only (N=60); or no follow-up echocardiograph or cardiopulmonary test (N=76). The primary outcomes will be: a) changes in exercise capacity measured by 6MWT; and b) changes in disease-specific HRQL measured by the MLHFQ. Additional measures will examine the effects of the exercise interventions on: cardiac performance; leisure time activity; cardio-respiratory fitness; body composition; neurohormonal activation; and generic HRQL

Conditions

• Heart Failure

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Nordic Walking	Participants in the Nordic walking group will be provided with walking poles (GymstickTM Nordic Walking Poles, Gymstick International OY, Lahti, Finland) for the duration of the study. They will attend on-site exercise classes twice weekly for 12 weeks. The on-site exercise training classes will be one hour in length and include the following components: a 15 minute chair warm-up that excludes resistance exercises; 10-15 minutes of walking with Nordic walking poles for the first 3 weeks, progressing to 30 minutes of continuous walking with poles for the remaining 9 weeks; and 15 minutes of cool down exercises. Participants will be instructed to take the walking poles home and perform 200-400 minutes of Nordic walking per week for 12 weeks

Timeline

• Start date: 2014-03-01
• Primary completion: 2016-12-31
• Completion: 2017-08-31
• First posted: 2014-02-12
• Last updated: 2022-03-10

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Canada