How OMT Benefits Newly Diagnosed Patients With Respiratory Illness When Given Alongside Other Standard Care.

July 7, 2025 updated by: Geisinger Clinic

OMT and Respiratory Illness

This study is to see Osteopathic Manipulative Therapy, or OMT, can aid in treating patients being seen for respiratory illness and associated symptoms. The hypothesis is that the addition of OMT therapy, alongside other standard care (such as a medication), can help lessen patient symptoms sooner than just other treatment alone, and the duration of the condition will shorten as well.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Respiratory illness is a common complaint seen routinely in primary care. Illness is a common cause of reduced productivity, general discomfort and missed time from work. Osteopathic manual therapy (OMT) and the lymphatic pump is used frequently among osteopathic physicians to treat patients with infections. Many osteopathic physicians have anecdotal reports of patient having reduced respiratory symptoms reported in follow up care from patients. OMT is a useful, low-cost treatment and can help reduce duration of illness symptoms, improve patients' comfort and accelerate their return to their productive lives.

There have been few studies on an outpatient level quantifying this improvement. Previous research in other models have showed benefits of OMT to help reduce illness. Studies in a rat model have shown reduced S. pneumonia bacterial load in the lung after lymphatic pump. Additional rat studies demonstrated improved benefit with lymphatic pump in addition to antibiotic treatment. In a dog model, lymphatic pump has been shown to increase cytokine flow to the thoracic duct. In humans, OMT has shown to improve secretory immunoglobulin A levels in stressed student population. In the hospital setting, OMT for patients with pneumonia has shown to decrease hospital length of stay 5. OMT has been a known useful additional treatment to pneumonia, however there are few prospective studies on treatment of pneumonia and respiratory illness in the outpatient setting.

This study is designed to support evidence that patients with a recent diagnosis of upper respiratory illness, sinusitis, bronchitis, or pneumonia who receive lymphatic pump OMT experience reduced severity and length of symptoms. After informed consent, patients of ages 65-100 years of age who are diagnosed with a respiratory illness will be randomized to either standard care without OMT, or standard care plus OMT. Patients will be provided an electronic survey to quantify symptoms of cough, congestion, and malaise on both the day of illness diagnosis followed by the same survey 5 days later. Survey results comparing day of diagnosis and 5 days later will be recorded in a secure database and analyzed with appropriate statistical testing. The goal of this study is to show how the lymphatic pump can reduce both severity and duration of symptoms related to respiratory illness.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

68

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 Contact

Study Contact Backup

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Pennsylvania
      • Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, United States, 17815
        • Recruiting
        • Geisinger 65-Forward, Buckhorn
        • Contact:
        • Principal Investigator:
          • Margaret Moore, DO

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

  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Patients being seen for respiratory illness symptoms at Geisinger 65-Forward Buckhorn, PA clinic for care.
  • Patients age of 65-100
  • New diagnosis of upper respiratory illness, sinusitis, bronchitis, or pneumonia during outpatient visit.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Patients that have a healing fracture, including the spine, pelvis, shoulder, ribs, vertebrae, or extremities.
  • Patients actively receiving any type of cancer treatment
  • Patients with active or previously diagnosed liver disease.

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
No Intervention: Control
Patients in the control group will receive normal standard care, including any prescriptions, follow-up instructions, etc., as given by the provider to help treat their condition.
Experimental: Treatment
Patients will receive lymphatic pump OMT therapy in addition to other standard care (similar to the control patients, this would be a medication, follow-up instructions, etc.)
Procedure: Lymphatic Pump Osteopathic Manipulative Therapy
OMT is a series of manual pressure and physical stimulation among various parts of the body to stimulate fluid movement and immune response in patients with various symptoms and disease. This may help with conditions such as edema, clearance of infections, facilitate healing and circulation, and bolster the immune response. Specifically, the lymphatic pump type of OMT targets the head, neck, thoracic region, lumbar and sacral regions, pelvis, arms, legs, and abdomen.
Other Names:
  • Lymphatic Pump OMT

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
To address the magnitude in which lymphatic pump OMT improves respiratory illness symptom severity and overall sickness duration when combined with standard care treatment.
Time Frame: Through study completion of up to one year.
Survey given to patients will provide feedback to capture their symptom severity at the time of diagnosis and 5 days post-diagnosis
Through study completion of up to one year.

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Geisinger Clinic

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Margaret Moore, DO, Physician

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)

December 31, 2024

Primary Completion (Estimated)

June 1, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

June 1, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

July 3, 2024

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 3, 2024

First Posted (Actual)

July 10, 2024

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimated)

July 8, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 7, 2025

Last Verified

July 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2024-0453

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

IPD Plan Description

There is no direct intent to share individual participant data related to this study. However, per institute policy, records of data generated during this study will be de-identified and will be kept for at least 6 years within the institutes secured database and then destroyed. Prior to destruction, the data will have the OPTION of being used for other Geisinger institutional review board-approved research if appropriate.

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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