Therapeutic Education for Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) Patients and Their Caregivers (ETP@MS)

April 29, 2026 updated by: University Hospital, Toulouse

Evaluation of a Therapeutic Education Program for Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) Patients : MSA Feasibility

Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a rare neurodegenerative disorder that leads to major disability, forcing patients and caregivers to adapt their environment and lifestyle. Once they receive the diagnosis, patients and caregivers need to understand the symptoms, cope with them, to digest the diagnosis... All these needs are not completely addressed by the current model of care so we created a therapeutic educational program (TEP) program that will last 12 months, involving both patients and caregivers, including a mixed model of in-person visits and continuous on-line activities. Our project aims to target early MSA patients and their caregivers, proposing to test the feasibility (primary objective) of an innovative therapeutic educational program (TEP) for MSA patients.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The announcement of MSA diagnosis may provoke a shock in patients and their relatives. Educational programs in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease (PD), offer patients and caregivers structured skills in disease knowledge, expertise, and management. Those programs may result in an improvement of patients' quality of life (QoL), empowering patients and their caregivers to deal with psychosocial challenges. Additionally, it has been shown that educational programs positively impact the perceived health of PD patients without increasing medical costs. There is no educational program for MSA patients. This is the reason why we created the first therapeutic educational program (TEP) for MSA patients and caregivers, including a mix model of in person visits and online classes and virtual activities. Herein, we aim to target early MSA patients (time to diagnosis < 1 year) and their caregivers, proposing to test the feasibility of this TEP. The program will last 12 months, involving both patients and caregivers, including a mixed model of in-person visits (at baseline and 12 months) and continuous on-line activities (learning situations, questionnaires, quizzes, videos, and interactive exercises).

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

15

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

  • France
      • Toulouse, France
        • CHU Toulouse

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

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Patients who have had a clinically probable diagnosis of MSA within the last 3 years or clinically established within the last year
  • Presence of a caregiver defined as a spouse, son/daughter or relative who lives with or sees the patient on a regular basis, i.e. at least three times a week.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Patients and/or caregiver unable to give consent
  • Patients without access to an internet network or without the material means to access the distance learning modules
  • Patients with a life expectancy of less than one year
  • Patients with legal guardians, curators, or legal protection
  • Patients not affiliated to a social security system
  • Patients in a period of exclusion from another study

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

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Experimental patients
MSA patients included in the therapeutic education program
Other: Therapeutic Education Program (TEP)
the TEP lasts 12 months, being structured into 6 modules.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Feasibility of the program
Time Frame: 1 year
Rate of the patient/caregiver pairs having reached the visit at 6 months and the visit at 12 months of the ETP program. The threshold value of the rate being 80% = " retention rate ". Thus, if the rate is equal or above 80% : the program is considered feasable
1 year

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Recruitment rate
Time Frame: 1 year
Rate of eligible patients successfully enrolled in the study
1 year
Satisfaction rate
Time Frame: 1 year
Satisfaction of the patients and caregivers with the program will be assessed by means of Likert scale questionnaires, stratified for different aspects of the program, including content, ease of use and format. Drop-out reasons will be recorded, to better understand the needs or the difficulties met during the TEP by patients and caregivers. As routinely done for all MSA patients followed in our Reference Centres, Unified Multiple System Atrophy Rating Scale (UMSARS) I + II will be collected at baseline and at study ending (12 months) The scale goes from 0 to 10 : 10 representing the highest satisfaction of the program.
1 year

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

University Hospital, Toulouse

Collaborators

The MSA Coalition

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Margherita FABBRI, MD, University Hospital, Toulouse

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 30, 2023

Primary Completion (Actual)

February 10, 2025

Study Completion (Actual)

February 10, 2025

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 6, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 6, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

April 19, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 6, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 29, 2026

Last Verified

April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • RC31/22/0520
  • 2023-A00340-45 (Other Identifier: ANSM)

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.

Clinical Trials on Multiple System Atrophy

Clinical Trials on Therapeutic Education Program (TEP)

Search Similar Trials

Sponsors and Collaborators

Medical Conditions

Drug Interventions

CROs by country

CROs in Greece

Conditions

Rare Diseases

Drug Interventions

Dietary Supplements

Sponsor/Collaborators

Locations

Subscribe