NCT05157932

An Evaluation of the Talk Test for Exercise Prescription for Home-Based Cardiac Rehabilitation

An Evaluation of the Talk Test as an Effective and Safe Approach for Exercise Prescription for Home-Based Cardiac Rehabilitation: A Pilot RCT

• Status: Active Not Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 40 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Ottawa Heart Institute Research Corporation · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 40 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The objectives of this pilot RCT are to examine if the Talk Test is an effective and safe tool as compared with CPET for exercise prescription in patients who have undergone CABG or PCI and enrolled in a home-based CR program with virtual exercise training monitoring.

Detailed description

The Talk Test has been shown to be a valid, practical and inexpensive tool for guiding exercise training in patients with CAD. The general premise of the Talk Test is that exercising at or above the ventilatory threshold or lactate threshold does not allow comfortable, conversational speech and thus serves as a means of estimating the cut point between moderate and vigorous intensity exercise. The Talk Test can be used to produce exercise intensities (64 to 95% HR peak i.e. moderate-to-vigorous intensity exercise) within accepted Canadian Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation (CACPR) guidelines for exercise training, to avoid exertional ischemia, and has been shown to be consistent across various modes of exercise (i.e. walking, jogging, cycling, elliptical trainer and stair stepper). There is a critical need to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of using the Talk Test as the principal method of exercise prescription in patients with CAD who have undergone CABG or PCI when compared to standard care CPET. Such a trial has wide-scale appeal for CR programs across Canada and beyond. It will directly and positively impact patient care by reducing the need for in-person interactions for CPET, of paramount importance during COVID-19 outbreaks, between patients and CR staff, thus reducing COVID-19 infection risk and concerns of contracting the virus.

Conditions

• Coronary Artery Disease

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Talk test prescription	Participants will be enrolled in the virtual cardiac rehab program and receive an exercise prescription based on the Talk test method.
BEHAVIORAL	CPET prescription	Participants will be enrolled in the virtual cardiac rehab program and receive an exercise prescription based on their CPET results completed at baseline

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-07-08
• Primary completion: 2026-07-31
• Completion: 2026-07-31
• First posted: 2021-12-15
• Last updated: 2026-03-12

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Canada