Effects of Exercise on Dystonia Pathophysiology

University of Florida

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Dystonia

Treatments: Behavioral: Progressive resistance exercise; Behavioral: Standard of care

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT05663840

1R01NS122943 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

IRB202200490

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this research study is to investigate how the brain and motor behavior changes in individuals with dystonia in response to exercise training.

Full description

Dystonia is a debilitating movement disorder. It involves involuntary muscle contractions with abnormal and repetitive movements, postures, or both. The current treatments for dystonia comprise of oral medications, botulinum toxin injections, and deep brain stimulation surgery. These treatments, despite optimal management, fail to improve symptoms in more than a third of patients and the improvements are often unpredictable. We will investigate the brain adaptation effects for progressive resistance exercise-focused cervical and shoulder training (PERFECT) in patients with focal cervical dystonia with functional MRI (fMRI) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) techniques for understanding the pathophysiology of dystonia and treatment related changes. The investigators propose to enroll patients with predominantly focal cervical dystonia and compare PERFECT plus standard-of-care (SOC) therapy (n = 27) with a control group of SOC therapy (n = 27). Participants in the PERFECT + SOC group will perform physical therapist-guided exercises twice a week for 6 months and participants in the SOC group will continue receiving standard pharmacological therapies at stable doses and they will not exercise.

Enrollment: 56 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 30 to 85 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients have predominantly focal cervical dystonia and whose diagnosis will be confirmed by a movement disorders specialist following criteria recommended by Movement Disorders Society.
• Moderate disease severity.
• Are 30 to 85 years old
• Are able to tolerate exercise sessions.
• Reporting suboptimal clinical benefits despite receiving maximally tolerated doses of BoNT injections for the neck muscles and/or oral pharmacological therapy.

Exclusion criteria

• Participating in an alternate structured exercise program, receiving regular physical or occupational therapy
• Have significant pain, spondylosis or active arthritis
• Fail the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire
• Have significant cognitive impairment
• Have implanted electrical device (eg, cardiac pacemaker or a DBS or a neurostimulator or metallic clip in their body, as necessitated by the risks of MRI or TMS
• Active seizure disorder; not be eligible for TMS and claustrophobic for MRI portion. As necessitated by the risks of MRI or TMS, patients who have any type of implanted electrical device (such as a cardiac pacemaker or a neurostimulator), or a certain type of metallic clip in their body (i.e., an aneurysm clip in the brain), active seizure disorder are not eligible for participation in the MRI or TMS portion of the study.
• Pregnancy tests will be carried out for each female subject of child bearing potential prior to the participation in the study and prior to each follow up visit (as indicated).

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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56 participants in 2 patient groups

Progressive resistance exercise (exercise group)

Experimental group

Description:

Subjects will receive physical therapy that will predominantly include progressive resistance exercise training program along with continuation of standard of care (exercise group)

Treatment:

Behavioral: Progressive resistance exercise

Standard of care (non-exercise group).

Active Comparator group

Description:

Subjects will receive continuation of standard of care (non-exercise group).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Standard of care