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Virtual Chair Yoga for Older Adults and Caregivers: Randomized Controlled Trial

NCT04884529 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 30

Last updated 2022-04-06

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Over 700,000 Canadians are affected by dementia costing the health care system approximately $10 billion/year. Due to COVID-19, the government has urged individuals over the age of 70 to stay home, putting this population at risk of social isolation. Older adults with mild cognitive impairments (MCIs), dementia, and their caregivers are at an even higher risk of becoming stressed, anxious, and agitated while in lockdown. Unsurprisingly, caregiver burden is extremely common, and often precedes institutionalization of the patient, as the demands of the illness begin to exceed that which the caregiver can sustainably provide. Since social distancing measures have shut down activities and support groups for these individuals, there is an urgent need for scalable, cost-effective, non-pharmacological interventions that can be delivered remotely to improve stress and loneliness. Yoga may be a viable therapeutic modality to address the psychological challenges associated with dementia in patients and caregivers, as it has been shown to decrease stress and improve anxiety and depressive symptoms in various populations. For this reason, the investigators are conducting a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to assess the efficacy of an 8-week virtual chair yoga program to improve stress, psychological symptoms, and caregiver burden. This virtual chair yoga study will engage both older adults with dementia/MCI and caregivers (n=40-60 participants) during COVID-19, which is consistent with the need for decreasing costs and increasing accessibility of novel health interventions during and beyond the pandemic. The investigators will evaluate the effect of this program on stress, loneliness, and mental health related outcomes such as fear of COVID-19, depression, anxiety, and caregiver burden compared to a waitlist control group. There will also be a qualitative component in the form of semi-structured interviews. All quantitative outcomes will be assessed before the program starts and post-intervention and qualitative outcomes will be assessed post-intervention. Participants will be randomly assigned to the treatment group (virtual chair yoga 1 hour per week on Zoom) or the waitlist control group. The investigators hypothesize that after the 8-week yoga program, older adults and caregivers will report lower stress, loneliness, depression, anxiety, fear of COVID-19, and caregiver burden. Results will be available late-2021.

Conditions

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Chair-yoga program

8-week chair yoga program with gentle postures, breathing techniques, and mindfulness.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Lady Davis Institute

    lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2021-09-01
Primary Completion
2021-12-30
Completion
2022-03-30

Countries

  • Canada

Study Locations

More Related Trials

Entities

Diseases

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT04884529 on ClinicalTrials.gov