NCT02632318

Dawn Simulation and Postural Hypotension

Dawn Simulation as a Passive Countermeasure to Postural Hypotension in Healthy Older Adults

• Status: Completed
• Phase: Phase 4
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 35 (actual)
• Sponsor: VA Palo Alto Health Care System · Federal
• Sex: All
• Age: 55 Years – 85 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

One of the most physiologically demanding things that older people do every day is to get up in the morning. After spending a night laying flat, where the blood distributes evenly across the body, when they stand in the morning (and the blood rushes to their feet), their cardiovascular system may not be able to compensate and maintain blood flow to the brain. This phenomenon is known as orthostatic or postural hypotension. The investigators have found in a group of young individuals that use of a dawn-simulation light that gradually wakes the brain is able to increase cardiovascular tone prior to arising. The goal of this experiment is to determine whether this dawn simulation light is able to increase cardiovascular tone in older adults such that they would have reduced or absent postural hypotension when they awaken in the morning. This would greatly reduce the risks of falls and their associated morbidities in older adults.

Conditions

• Orthostatic Hypotension

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Light	30 minutes of dawn simulation

Timeline

• Start date: 2016-09-01
• Primary completion: 2019-02-01
• Completion: 2019-02-01
• First posted: 2015-12-16
• Last updated: 2019-10-25

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States