Craniocerebral Trauma
Conditions
Keywords
'traumatic brain injury', 'head injury', 'brain injuries', 'exercise therapy', 'physical fitness'
Brief summary
The aim of this project is to compare the efficacy of two different fitness exercise programmes on improving fitness and psychosocial functioning in a traumatic brain injured population. We hypothesize that a supervised fitness-centre based exercise programme, compared to an unsupervised home-based exercise programme will show significant improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness, depression and community integration.
Detailed description
The objective of this project is to compare a three-month supervised fitness centre-based exercise programme to a 3-month unsupervised home-based exercise programme on discharge from inpatient rehabilitation on improving cardiorespiratory fitness and psychosocial functioning in a traumatic brain injured population. We plan to carry out a multi-centre, assessor blinded, randomised controlled trial with a parallel group design to compare the two interventions. We hypothesise that the supervised fitness-centre based programme will provide significantly better outcomes, and that these gains will not only be evident on completion of the programme, but will be maintained on follow-up, thereby demonstrating that investment in a supervised exercise programme can provide beneficial long-term effects.
Interventions
PROCEDURECardiorespiratory fitness training
Sponsors
Motor Accidents Authority of NSW
Sydney South West Area Health Service
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
15 Years to 65 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Patients who have sustained a traumatic brain injury who have completed their inpatient rehabilitation at either of the three Sydney Metropolitan Brain Injury Units (Liverpool, Ryde or Westmead) will be included in this study if they: * have sustained a very severe or extremely severe traumatic brain injury * have had a hospital admission of \> 1 month * are able to walk independently at \> 1 m/s on discharge * are able to commit 3 hours per week to a fitness programme * live within the area serviced by the 3 units
Exclusion criteria
* have a concurrent medical condition for which moderate to high intensity exercise is contraindicated * are still in Posttraumatic Amnesia (PTA) * have cognitive or language problems that affect their ability to understand verbal instructions * have behaviour problems not suitable for a fitness centre environment
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| Measure of Cardiorespiratory fitness:Modified 20 metre Walk/Run Shuttle Test: | — |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| Profile of Moods Scale (POMS) | — |
| BICRO-39 | — |
| Sydney Psychosocial Reintegration Scale (SPRS) | — |
| Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) | — |
| Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) | — |
| Hip to Waist ratio | — |
| Body Mass Index (BMI) | — |
Countries
Australia
Outcome results
None listed