Effects of Osteopathic Manipulative Therapy on Arrhythmias

Summary

The study focuses on patients who have already been diagnosed with an arrhythmia. This is a randomized control trial that will use measurements from the implanted devices to quantify changes in the number of cardiac events experienced. Subjects will present to the Long Island Heart Rhythm Clinic (LIHRC) at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) Academic Health Care Center for their scheduled appointment with Dr. Cohen. These patients are generally coming in for their electrophysiology cardiology checkup, postsurgical visit, or consultation concerning their cardiac health. Once confirmed the patients meet the inclusion criteria, they will be informed about this proposed study and asked if they would like to participate. They will then be consented and randomized according to the randomization procedure outlined below.

Once enrolled, the patients will complete the study as outlined in the procedures below. They will have a baseline EKG taken, and then proceed to either Osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM) treatment or control somatic dysfunction (SD) evaluation. The investigators will then analyze the CareLink data, or the web-based management service for the respective device, to quantify the effects the OMM or control SD evaluation had on any arrhythmia events.

All investigators delivering OMM will be neuromuscular medicine/osteopathic manipulative medicine (NMM/OMM) board certified attending physicians and trained in the specific techniques that have been associated with arrhythmia SDs and treatment modalities to have consistency when treating subjects. Subject confidentiality will be maintained throughout the process as delineated in Question 5 of the protocol document.

Conditions

• Cardiac Arrhythmia

Interventions

PROCEDURE

Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) focused on somatic dysfunctions commonly associated with arrhythmias on the amount of quantifiable arrhythmias as recorded on a diagnostic device. It is known that OMT has a stabilizing effect on the autonomic nervous system, which plays a key role in regulating heart rate and blood pressure. This increases parasympathetic tone and decreases sympathetic tone, which generally stabilizes the heart with an antiarrhythmic effect. Previous work has been done showing that osteopathic treatment is a beneficial adjunctive therapy for paroxysmal atrial fibrillation and decreased symptoms, though has not been proven to be helpful for patients with heart failure. While the effect of OMT on the neurology has been studied, we would like to further research the effect OMT specifically has on arrhythmias using more quantifiable data from implanted devices.

PROCEDURE

Light Touch Therapy

The physician will contact various areas of the body for 120 seconds each to expose the subject to a similar environment as the interventional group, without stimulating the autonomic nervous system.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• New York Institute of Technology

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Todd Cohen, MD · New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-06-04

Primary Completion

2022-04-30

Completion

2022-04-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations