Spinal Cord Injury Mental Health Functional Outcomes Improved by Mindfulness

Summary

Recovery from injury is an immune function but also involves stress. Spinal cord injury (SCI) patients are one population with a difficult recovery journey. Improvements in SCI rehabilitation could benefit patient's recovery and decrease their functional limitations. Lack of independence and chronic pain contributes to a higher rate of mental health problems (48.5%) and clinical stress (25%) in SCI patients. Depression is more common among auto-immune phenotypes and depression patients have higher pro-inflammatory cytokine profiles, suggesting stress impacts the immune system and thus opposes recovery. Mindfulness meditation (MM) is one form of stress-reduction therapy, which also decreases anxiety, depression, and pain. Little research has investigated whether this extends to functional outcomes of mental health during recovery. The investigators will look at the "functional outcomes of mental health", including stress, pain, quality of life, quality of sleep, and outcomes of depression using validated surveys. The investigators hypothesize that MM will significantly improve functional outcomes of mental health in SCI patients during their rehabilitation in a dose-dependent fashion, compared to 'standard therapy' alone control, with effects sustained 1-month post-intervention. Patients will take surveys of their mindfulness practices and mental health functional outcomes at 0 weeks (baseline), 8 weeks (post-treatment), and 12 weeks (follow-up). MM will be delivered to a randomized sample of SCI patients via one of three MM apps for 8 weeks. Linear regression will identify if patients practicing more MM have better mental health functional outcomes in a dose-dependent manner. The findings from this study will provide evidence of sustained stress-relief and mental health functional outcomes of consumer-based MM apps, which can be applied to improve SCI rehabilitation in an accessible manner.

Conditions

• Spinal Cord Injuries
• Mindfulness Meditation
• Mental Health Wellness 1

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Mindfulness meditation (MM)

Towards this additional MM practice, participants will be able to use any combination of the MM apps: "Insight timer", which focuses on community/group-like therapy, "Healthy minds", which focuses on resilience that is essential in disability adjustment, and "Smiling mind", that reminds patients of their family/support structures. These three options were chosen for delivering free MM with different focuses that would cater to the variety of SCI patients needs. Participants will be alerted if they are not achieving 30 minutes of additional MM per week. This will guarantee that the treatment group have a higher time spent on MM for dose-response analysis. Participants will receive a reminder email (see attached) on the Sunday evening of a week with \<30 minutes of additional MM encouraging them to use their mindfulness app.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Queen's University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Karen Smith, MD · Queen's University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-10-04

Primary Completion

2023-03-27

Completion

2023-03-27

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations