Effects of a Supervised Rehabilitation Program on Disease Severity in Spastic Ataxias

Summary

Spastic ataxias are a group of diseases causing symptoms such as walking difficulties and balance impairments that lead to a high risk of falls. No pharmacological treatments exist to treat these diseases. Unfortunately, little effort is made to develop non-pharmacological treatments specific to spastic ataxias despite the detrimental impact of the disease on several aspects of an individual's life and the high cost of falls for society each year. The three objectives of this project are: 1) to determine the effect of a 12-week rehabilitation program on disease severity as compared with usual care for individuals with spastic ataxias; 2) to identify which factors can help (or not) the implementation of the program in the clinical settings ("reel world"); and 3) to explore the cost-benefits of IMPACT \[rehabIlitation prograM for sPAstiC aTaxias\]. The team has developed the program to specifically target symptoms present in these patients and was previously pilot-tested. Based on the results obtained in this pilot project, positive effects are expected concerning the disease severity of participants. The investigators want, with this project, provide to health care professionals an option to offer better-suited services to people living with spastic ataxia worldwide.

Conditions

• Autosomal Recessive Spastic Ataxia of Charlevoix-Saguenay
• Spastic Paraplegia 7

Interventions

PROCEDURE

IMPACT - rehabIlitation prograM for sPAstiC aTaxias

The rehabilitation program will last 12 weeks and consists of three training sessions of 60 minutes per week (2 sessions in a therapy room and 1 session in an adapted pool with multiple levels of water) for a total of 36 sessions. Participants will be divided into 7 subgroups of 6 participants and each sub-group will be supervised by one physiotherapist (PT) and one physiotherapy technologist for safety considerations. It will focus on these three domains: 1) postural control; balance, trunk-limbs and multi-joints control and coordination and 3) functional mobility. Each domain contains a standardized list of exercises with different difficulty levels and specific times allocation. All exercises will be executed by the participants at each session at the appropriate difficulty level. The initial level of difficulty for each exercise will be determined by the PT based on individual results of the pre-intervention assessment and on individual performance, fatigue level and safety.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• McGill University

  collaborator OTHER

• Université de Sherbrooke

  collaborator OTHER

• Université du Québec a Montréal

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Calgary

  collaborator OTHER

• Corporation de recherche et d'action sur les maladies héréditaires (CORAMH)

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Cégep de Jonquière

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Muscular Dystrophy Canada

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Alberta

  collaborator OTHER

• Integrated University Health and Social Services Center of the Capitale-Nationale

  collaborator OTHER

• Laval University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Elise Duchesne, Ph D. · Université du Québec à Chicoutimi

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

16 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-02-01

Primary Completion

2026-04-30

Completion

2027-03-31

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations