Effects of a Metronome on Functional Outcomes in Aquatic Therapy

Aultman Health Foundation

Status: Completed

Conditions: Exercise Therapy

Treatments: Device: Metronome

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03801772

AultmanRA2018.10.AF

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to determine if the use of a pacing device, a metronome, improves functional outcome measures in aquatic therapy when compared to a control group.

Enrollment: 100 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• All patients over the age of 18 assigned to aquatic therapy

Exclusion criteria

• Women who identify themselves as pregnant on the clinics intake sheet.
• Anyone unable to hear the beats of the metronome.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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100 participants in 2 patient groups

Metronome

Active Comparator group

Description:

This arm will be using the metronome as a pacing device during aquatic exercises.

Treatment:

Device: Metronome

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

The patients will be educated on proper performance of aquatic exercises following normal physical therapy procedures. Patients will start with 10-20 repetitions of the exercises depending on their physical ability and progressed as the patient's strength and endurance improve. Each session will last approximately 30 to 45 minutes. The BORG scale (a valid, subjective measure of perceived exertion) will be used as a monitoring device to ensure that a desired level of exercise intensity is reached. The desired level is a score between 12 and 16. The patients will be asked to rate their level of exertion at the end of each session. Intensity of the exercises will be adjusted the next session if the patient's reported level of exertion does not fall within the desired range. The pain rating and the BORG number will be recorded for both groups in the chart and flow