Yoga for a Healthy Heart (YHH)

April 8, 2026 updated by: Allan Chiunda, The Cleveland Clinic

Yoga for a Healthy Heart Study: Addressing Stress Management and Functional Cognition as Barriers to Both Medication Management and Blood Pressure Regulation for African American Patients With Hypertension

The Yoga for a Healthy Heart study will address various barriers to both medication management and blood pressure regulation for African American patients with hypertension.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The program will take place in person at South Pointe's hospital community outreach center. The program will be an 8-week program, once per week, 60 minutes in length, consisting of meditation, or relaxation, pranayama which are breathing techniques and asana, or physical postures. Yoga, is defined as the fluctuations or roaming tendencies of the mind according the Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. In addition to therapeutic yoga techniques, lifestyle management will be discussed or self-reflections written in journals. Lifestyle management skills include learning how to take blood pressure and manage a pillbox, as well as develop prosocial communication skills through lessons on mindful communication. The classes will be taught in person. The instructor facilitating the program will be a skilled healthcare professional certified in both Occupational Therapy and Yoga teaching at the 500-hour level. The Occupational Therapist will provide both skilled assessments and interventions in the group setting of the community health class. Assessments include: 1. Perceived Stress Scale 2. Canadian Occupational Performance Measurement 3. Mini and Medi-Cog 4. Blood pressure assessments pre and post class.

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Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

8

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
    • Ohio
      • Warrensville Heights, Ohio, United States, 44122
        • South Pointe Hospital

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:

  • Over 18
  • has transportation to South Pointe Hospital
  • Has the ability to walk, or use a wheelchair from the entrance of the building
  • Able to attend all 8 sessions
  • Diagnosis of hypertension
  • African American
  • Prescribed antihypertensive medication
  • Able to stand up from the chair independently
  • Able to walk to the bathroom independently with or without a device
  • Approved by cardiologist to participate

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Unable to tolerate sitting for 1 hour
  • BP over 200/100
  • Unable to independently walk or use a wheelchair to the bathroom

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

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Yoga participant
Providing once weekly class for 8 weeks, participants will take part in performing yoga poses and yoga breathing and meditation for stress management
Behavioral: Therapeutic yoga
Yoga interventions include yoga poses, breathing, and meditation

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Blood pressure
Time Frame: 8 weeks
take both systolic and diastolic blood pressure before and after intervention each class and from beginning of session to end of 8 week session
8 weeks
Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)
Time Frame: 8 weeks
Scores ranging from 0-13 would be considered low stress. Scores ranging from 14-26 would be considered moderate stress. Scores ranging from 27-40 would be considered high perceived stress. To assess changes in outcomes for perceived stress from beginning of intervention to completion of intervention
8 weeks
Canadian Occupational Performance Measurement
Time Frame: 8 weeks
Changes in components of the COPM that reflect self-care, productivity, and leisure activities may also be analyzed separately in a similar manner using the participants that have rated a problem within these categories among the 5 most important problems used to calculate their total COPM score.
8 weeks
Mini and Medi Cog
Time Frame: 8 weeks
To assess changes in outcomes on managing medications and on short term memory
8 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

The Cleveland Clinic

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Allan Chiunda, MD, PhD, South Pointe Hospital

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, 2024

Primary Completion (Actual)

July 19, 2024

Study Completion (Actual)

July 19, 2024

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

November 2, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

November 30, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

December 4, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

April 13, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 8, 2026

Last Verified

April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 23-445

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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