WE BEAT - HEART Club Fontan Wellness Project: A Virtual Resilience Promotion and Frailty Prevention Program

This trial is being conducted to evaluate the effect of a small-group wellness education program combined with a longitudinal, individualized prescription exercise program on the wellness, resiliency, and daily activity levels of pediatric patients with Fontan physiology.

There will be two phases for this project. The first phase is the "WE BEAT Group Wellness Education Program" and participants will be transitioned into the phase two HEART Club following phase one.

The trial will look at feasibility and acceptability of the program. Additional hypothesis include home whether exercise interventions can:

• be delivered without any associated serious cardiac events;
• will result in a decreased proportion of patients who are categorized as frail when compared to the cohort's pre-test baseline.
• will result in increased measured peak oxygen consumption when compared with their pre-intervention baseline.
• will result in increased step counts measured monthly from baseline to end of intervention
• will improve self-reported quality of life from baseline to post-intervention.
• will result in increased patient reported activity level from baseline to post-intervention

Study Overview

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Conditions: Frailty; Fontan Physiology; Single Ventricle Heart Disease
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: WE BEAT Group Wellness Education program - phase 1; Behavioral: HEART Club Home Exercise program - phase 2

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 30
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Michigan
    • Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States, 48109
      • University of Michigan

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 13 years to 18 years (Child, Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Males and females with Fontan physiology who are 13 to <19 years of age at enrollment
• Own a mobile device capable of installing the University of Michigan Patient Portal application
• Fluent in English
• Participant consent or parental/guardian consent and participant assent

Exclusion Criteria:

• Height < 130 centimeters
• Current intravenous inotropic drugs
• Severe ventricular dysfunction assessed qualitatively by clinical echocardiography within six months prior to enrollment.
• Severe valvar regurgitation, ventricular outflow obstruction, or aortic arch obstruction assessed by clinical echocardiography within six months prior to enrollment.
• History of arrhythmia with exercise (excluding isolated supraventricular or ventricular ectopy without symptoms).
• Inability to complete exercise testing at baseline screening.
• Noncardiac medical, developmental, and/or social disorder that would prevent successful completion of planned study testing or would invalidate its results.
• Suicidality or homicidality in the past 6 months.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Intervention / Treatment

Experimental: Wellness education and Home exercise programs

Behavioral: WE BEAT Group Wellness Education program - phase 1; Participants will be assigned into a small group with 3-6 other participants and will participate in a weekly, 45-50 minute intervention session for 5 weeks, delivered by a licensed clinical psychologist or limited licensed clinical psychology fellow using University of Michigan (UM) Zoom. Each session will focus on a particular skill related to wellness and resiliency. There will also be a short battery of questionnaires to complete.; Behavioral: HEART Club Home Exercise program - phase 2; This is an individualized home exercise program adapted from the exercise programs used in traditional, hospital-based cardiac rehabilitation. A complete cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) may be completed if needed for a baseline and one will be done at the last visit. The exercise physiology team will discuss participants exercise goals, interests, and available resources to help develop the exercise plan for the research study. Once the program is designed, participants will complete the exercise activities in the plan. Over time, participants will advance through various stages in the program and then will be gradually introduced to the principles of exercise rehabilitation and more intense physical exercise. Participants will be asked to wear a wearable activity tracker and have scheduled video check-ins with the exercise physiology team. Throughout the program participants will complete a short battery of surveys.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 10	This is a 10 item self-report rating scale 0 (not true at all) to 4 (true nearly all the time). The overall score range from 0 (no resilience) to 40 (high Resilience).	baseline, 6 weeks
Change in the Lurz-Wilde pediatric frailty score	The Lurz-Wilde Frailty score is the sum of points scored across 5 domains of physical and mental functioning (weakness, slowness, shrinkage, exhaustion, diminished physical activity). The maximum score is 10. If a patient accumulates > 5 points, they are considered frail. If a patient accumulates 4-5 points, they are considered pre-frail.	baseline (prior to home exercise start), after exercise program (6 months)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Feasibility of the 2-phase intervention based on recruitment information - number of participants that are: approached, eligible, enrolled		up to approximately 18 months
Feasibility of the 2-phase intervention based on sociodemographic data including: self-reported race, ethnicity, household income, and education level of primary caregiver		up to approximately 18 months
Feasibility of the home exercise intervention program based on the number of adverse events (AEs) Categorized by relatedness to the intervention	Not related: Accidents and injuries not related to exercise prescription, illnesses not attributed to cardiovascular status, Cardiac events that are not temporally related to prescribed exercise sessions; Possibly: Musculoskeletal complaints consistent with overuse or repetitive stress injury with a mechanism that is not consistent with the prescribed of exercise, Cardiac events/symptoms that occur between 90 to180 minutes after exercise; Probably: Musculoskeletal complaints consistent with overuse or repetitive stress injury that are consistent with the prescribed mechanism of exercise, Cardiac events/symptoms that occur between 15 minutes to 90 minutes after prescribed exercise; Definitely: Accidents or injuries that occur during prescribed exercise, Cardiac events/symptoms that occur during or up to 15 minutes after prescribed exercise	6 months
Change in the Patient Reported Outcome Measures Information System (PROMIS) pediatric physical activity -short form 4a	This is a 4-item questionnaire that asks participants about their level of physical activity in the past 7 days. Items are scored on a 5-point scale. Scores range from 4 to 20 with 4 indicating low physical activity and 20 indicating high physical activity (better outcome).	baseline (prior to home exercise start), after exercise program (6 months)
Change in the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System Pediatric Profile-25 2.0 (PROMIS-25)	PROMIS-25 measures quality of life (i.e., depression, anxiety, and pain interference). The 25 items are on a 1-5 scale and are scored using the Health Measures Scoring Service with higher scores indicating a lower quality of life.	baseline (prior to home exercise start), after exercise program (6 months)
Seven day running average step counts		baseline (week 1 of exercise program), last week of exercise program (6 months)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Michigan
• Collaborators: Reuben Phoenix Schostak Fontan Wellness Project Fund
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Jesse Hansen, MD, University of Michigan

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): March 30, 2022
• Primary Completion (Actual): April 1, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): July 31, 2026

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: January 7, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 7, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): January 20, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 13, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 7, 2026
• Last Verified: April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Exercise program; Wellness education
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Pathologic Processes; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms; Frailty
• Other Study ID Numbers: HUM00205931

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
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No