Improving Age-Related Cognitive Decline With Exercise in Hypertensive Older Adults (DECLARE)

The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Status: Completed

Conditions: Hypertension

Treatments: Other: High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) Exercise

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05043454

IRB-300007742

Details and patient eligibility

About

The investigator aims to assess the extent to which a brief exercise intervention improves systemic growth factor concentrations, reverses loss of systemic vascular networks and hypertension, and by extension, improves neurocognition. To test the investigator's hypothesis that increased cardiovascular fitness will correlate with improved vascular density, the investigator proposes the innovative use of retinal density scans.

Enrollment: 11 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 55 to 75 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• adults between 55-75 years of age
• essential hypertension (as determined by referring physicians)
• engages in less than 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise/week (as determined by CHAMPS Questionnaire)
• physically able to exercise
• access to an upright cycle ergometer at home or via gym access
• access to smart device (iOS or Android phone or tablet with ability to install and use Polar Beat and Polar FlowTM applications).

Exclusion criteria

• diagnosis of dementia
• resting systolic blood pressure <120, or >180 mm Hg
• disease or condition that would preclude exercise
• untreated depression or anxiety disorders
• severe respiratory disease
• disease of the eye
• refractive error > 6 diopters or +6 diopters (as assessed by 1st retinal scan).

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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11 participants in 1 patient group

Vascular Density Improvement in Hypertensive Participants

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will undergo baseline visits and follow-up visits to include neurocognitive testing, VO2 max testing (graded exercise test), blood draws, and retinal scans. Potential subjects must pass an exercise stress test with 12-lead ECG, and training sessions (exercise protocol). Standardized neurocognitive tests assessing functions such as memory and attention will be administered and retinal scans will be conducted. The at-home exercise intervention will be supervised via the Polar beat/flow applications by study personnel. Subjects will engage in cardiovascular exercise with heart rate monitoring on 4 days per week for a total of 10 weeks.

Treatment:

Other: High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) Exercise