Telerehabilitation Intervention to Promote Exercise for Diabetes

December 16, 2014 updated by: US Department of Veterans Affairs
The overarching objective of this study is to develop an innovative strategy to address the problems of obesity and diabetes by promoting exercise adoption. An automated telephone intervention will be developed that can be used to enhance exercise adoption over a twelve month period in a population of overweight or obese veterans with Type 2 diabetes.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Approximately two thirds of American adults are overweight (body mass index - BMI > 25), and nearly one third of American adults are obese (BMI > 30) with veterans exhibiting even higher rates of being overweight and obese than those in the general population. Obesity is a significant risk factor for a number of serious medical conditions, including diabetes, and is associated with high rates of morbidity, and mortality. Greater than 80% of individuals with diabetes are overweight or obese. Sixteen million Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes, and it has been speculated that this number will increase to 23 million by the year 2010. Furthermore, there is a substantially higher prevalence of diabetes in the veteran population as compared to the general population, with nearly 16 percent of veterans being affected. This alarming increase has been associated with the increasing prevalence of obesity and sedentary lifestyles. In a conference conducted by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in 1999, it was concluded that a major research initiative was needed to address the growing problem with physical inactivity and obesity because of the major impact these behaviors have on the development and treatment of diabetes.

The benefits associated with exercise in the diabetic population are extensive, and even though regular exercise is typically prescribed as a significant component of the diabetic treatment plan, compliance tends to be very poor. The overarching objective of this study is to adapt a low cost telephone intervention to be used to enhance exercise adoption in a population of overweight or obese veterans with type 2 diabetes. The primary aim of this study is to implement and evaluate the effectiveness of this telehealth intervention over a six month period. The secondary aim is to evaluate the impact this telehealth intervention has on weight and other diabetes relevant physical health parameters, quality of life and psychological distress. If the telehealth intervention is found to be efficacious, the tertiary aim will be to evaluate the cost effectiveness of the intervention. Over a 4-year period, 140 overweight or obese veterans with type 2 diabetes will be recruited from the VA Boston Healthcare System. All participants will be evaluated and provided with an exercise prescription for a home based walking program. Participants will be randomized to either the Exercise Prescription condition alone, or Exercise Prescription plus TLC-PED (Telephone Linked Care - Promoting Exercise for Diabetes), an automated telehealth intervention. TLC-PED will use interactive voice response and recognition telephone technology to provide individualized phone messages for participants with diabetes. It will be developed to incorporate theoretical principles that are known to enhance exercise adoption. Specifically, the intervention will use motivating principles based on the transtheoretical model of change. Those in the TLC-PED condition will receive weekly automated telephone calls for a six month period. It is hypothesized that overweight veterans with diabetes who receive the TLC-PED intervention (versus those who do not) during their six month participation in a home based walking program will be more likely to engage in regular physical activity and obtain improvements in self-reported physical activity, and maintain these changes over a twelve month period.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

89

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Massachusetts
      • Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02130
        • VA Medical Center, Jamaica Plain Campus

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Clinical diagnosis of type 2 diabetes mellitus
  • Receive a medical clearance from physician
  • Be sedentary
  • Be interested in exercising
  • Have a BMI > 25 kg/m2
  • Have an HbA1c between 7 & 10%
  • Be on medication for diabetes

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Significant peripheral neuropathy
  • Active psychosis
  • Psych admission or substance abuse in the last 6 months
  • Severe brain dysfunction
  • Abnormal ECG
  • Orthopedic related limitations
  • Unable to understand English
  • No direct access to telephone

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Arm 1
Participants in this arm will meet with an exercise physiologist and obtain an exercise prescription for a walking program. In addition, they will recieve an intervention that will be delivered over an automated telephone system (TLC-PED). These automated phone calls with voice response and voice recognition capabilities will occur weekly over a 6 month period. During these calls, participants' physical activity will be monitored, new physical activities goals will be set, information about physical activity and the associated health benefits will be provided, and barriers to physical activity will be explored.
Behavioral: TLC-PED
Telephone-Linked Care - Promoting Exercise for Diabetes (TLC-PED), a method that uses interactive voice response and speech recognition technologies, will be developed to provide individualized and personalized motivational messages using automated telephone calls for veterans with Type 2 diabetes who participate in a home based walking program.
No Intervention: Arm 2
This is the "treatment as usual" condition. Participants in this condition will also have 2 sessions with an exercise physiologist and will receive an exercise prescription for a home based walking program. The will not receive the automated phone calls each week that are designed to motivate physical activity.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
7-Day Physical Activity Recall (PAR)
Time Frame: six months
A self-report measure of minutes of physical activity over the previous 7 days.
six months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

US Department of Veterans Affairs

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Deanna L Mori, PhD, VA Medical Center, Jamaica Plain Campus

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

January 1, 2009

Primary Completion (Actual)

April 1, 2012

Study Completion (Actual)

April 1, 2012

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

June 2, 2006

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 2, 2006

First Posted (Estimate)

June 6, 2006

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

January 6, 2015

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 16, 2014

Last Verified

December 1, 2014

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • F4202-I

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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