Fan Therapy in COPD Patients

August 3, 2017 updated by: City, University of London

A Pilot Study of Hand-held Fan Therapy in Breathless Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Patients

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a common smoking related lung disease. The main symptom in breathlessness.

Pulmonary Rehabilitation (PR) - a supervised group exercise and education class - is an effective intervention in COPD to reduce symptoms, improve exercise performance and prevent exacerbations. However some COPD patients are unable to to effectively exercise as they are limited by their breathlessness, despite optimal medical management. By reducing their physical activity to avoid the onset of breathlessness, they become deconditioned and then further attempts at exercise make them more breathless, leading to an inactivity cycle.

There is a growing evidence base regarding the use of hand hold fan therapy or air therapy to relieve breathlessness at rest. Limited studies have looked at the use of fan therapy during exercise, and its role on exercise capacity and recovery time, provisional results which indicate it may also be useful during activity. Logically you might expect patients who are less breathless to be able to exercise more, or recover quicker.

This study aims to investigate the effects a hand held fan will have on sensation of breathlessness and exercise capacity in patients with COPD. This will involve participants undertaking a standardised field walking test ( 6 minute walk test) with and with out the fan and then comparing the distance covered and how they felt during and after exercise. This will better inform how we structure exercise and advice to these patients in the future to empower patients limited by breathlessness.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

14

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 Kingdom
      • London, United Kingdom, SE5 9RS
        • King's College Hospital NHS Trust

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

14 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (Forced Expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1)/Vital capacity ratio < 70%, with an observed respiratory impairment ( Global initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) stage II-IV: < 79% FEV1 predicted)
  • Age > 18 years old
  • Exertional breathlessness with a Medical Research Council (MRC) breathlessness scale greater of equal to 2

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Recent exacerbation of COPD symptoms requiring antibiotics within the preceding 4 weeks
  • Significant cardiovascular or peripheral disease that could influence exercise tolerance and ability to perform exercise test
  • Unable to hold fan to face and mobilise
  • On Long Term Oxygen Therapy or fulfils criteria for ambulatory oxygen
  • Lack of English Language Competency

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: Crossover Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: No Intervention
Experimental: Hand Held Fan Therapy
Device: Hand Held Fan Therapy
Hand-Held fan therapy used to generate airflow directed to face during specific exercise test

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Breathlessness as measured on the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS)
Time Frame: Change from baseline measurement of breathlessness on the NRS to the measurement of breathlessness on NRS after a 6 minute walk test
Units on a Scale
Change from baseline measurement of breathlessness on the NRS to the measurement of breathlessness on NRS after a 6 minute walk test

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Walking distance
Time Frame: 6 minutes
as measured during a 6 minute walk test
6 minutes
Oxygen Saturation Levels
Time Frame: 6 minutes
peripheral oxygen saturation levels as measured during a 6 minute walk test
6 minutes
Recovery time
Time Frame: in minutes, anticipate no longer than 10minutes
Time in mins taken for sensation of breathlessness to return to baseline levels after completion of a 6 minute walk test
in minutes, anticipate no longer than 10minutes

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

City, University of London

Collaborators

King's College Hospital NHS Trust

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Martin Dr Cartwright, BSc, MSc, PhD, City, University of London

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 (Actual)

May 24, 2017

Primary Completion (Actual)

July 26, 2017

Study Completion (Actual)

July 26, 2017

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 24, 2017

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 28, 2017

First Posted (Actual)

May 2, 2017

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

August 4, 2017

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 3, 2017

Last Verified

August 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 218706

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

No

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

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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