Feasibility & Effect of a Tele-rehabilitation Program in Pulmonary Sarcoidosis Pulmonary Sarcoidosis

Summary

Pulmonary sarcoidosis (PS) is defined as a multisystem granulomatous disorder of unknown cause affecting different vital organs, especially the lungs.

PS manifest in reduction of pulmonary function. Overall symptoms lead to poor physical conditioning contributing to a vicious cycle of more physical inactivity.

Treatment of sarcoidosis is usually limited to patient symptoms. Progressive fibrosis sometimes can lead to respiratory failure and ultimately, pulmonary transplantation.

Physical training shows promising evidence of a positive effect on PF. No defined training program with regard to exercise frequency, duration or intensities exists.

PS is a relatively rare disease and patients are scattered in great geographically areas,.It is difficult to organize targeted group training with supervised physical training, convenient for patients and affordable for the public health sector. Tele-rehabilitation (TR) seems to be a good approach to reach patients in low inhabited areas, going from health care to self-care, empowering patient's awareness of their disease and increasing the flexibility patients need to acquire healthier behaviors.

Preliminary evaluations from TR initiatives in Scotland showed tele-rehabilitation to be more cost effective with patients living in remote areas than with the outreach- or centralized model.

No studies on the feasibility effect of TR in PS exists. The study is a prospective randomized controlled trial investigating the effects of tele-rehabilitation in patients with PS compared to standard practice. 24 patients with PS will be randomized in two groups, trained by tele-rehabilitation for 12 weeks and afterwards followed for 6 months. The control group will follow the usual control program for PS patients that only involves outpatient visits approximately every 3rd month. No specific PS rehabilitation program exists. The intervention group will receive TR in the form of video consultations- and chat sessions with a real physiotherapist and workout sessions with a virtual physiotherapist agent. They will also train with virtual reality glasses or tablets that show the actual exercises in the training program.

Patients will be tested with pulmonary function, physical, anxiety and quality of life parameters, all at baseline, after 12 weeks of intervention, 3 and 6 months after cessation of the program.

Conditions

• Sarcoidosis, Pulmonary
• Telerehabilitation

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Telerehabilitation

Each patient will have the opportunity to have minimum one VC per week the first month, one Video Consultation each second week the second month one VC a month the rest of the trial. Here the physiotherapist, via history will extract the information needed to calibrate the daily TR program according to the patient's physical status and needs. Workout Sessions with a Virtual Physiotherapist Agent (VPA): The patient will train according to what is decided by the physiotherapist and the patient in the VC or chat meetings. Normally, the patients will train 10-20 minutes daily at home with its individual and tailored VPA. Instead of ergometer bike training, the patient will receive some easy training tools such as elastics, weights and a fitness-step that can be used in the different exercises showed by the VPA to reach the same intensity of workout. The VPA will then be animated to motivate and encourage the patient to exercises at home.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Eurostars

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Aarhus

  collaborator OTHER

• Aarhus University Hospital

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Elisabeth Bendstrup, PhD, MD · Aarhus University Hospital

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2018-12-12

Primary Completion

2021-10-01

Completion

2025-10-01

Countries

• Denmark

Study Locations