Iyengar Yoga for Prolonged Grief Disorder

Medical College of Wisconsin

Status: Active, not recruiting

Conditions: Prolonged Grief Disorder

Treatments: Other: Socialization Control; Other: Iyengar Yoga

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05026827

00003864

Details and patient eligibility

About

Experiencing the death of a loved one is inevitable for older adults. Before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, over 2.5 million people died annually in the United States, including 52,000 in Wisconsin alone, and COVID-19 has added to this toll. Each person who dies leaves an average of five grieving people behind. Most grieving older adults are resilient and recover their pre-loss functioning within one year. However, in about 10%, acute grief becomes protracted and debilitating, leading to the development of prolonged grief disorder (PGD), a clinically diagnosable mental health condition. PGD in older adults increases the risk for poorer medical, mental health, and cognitive outcomes; lower quality of life; disability; premature mortality; and suicide. Despite the magnitude of this problem, the neurobiology of PGD in older adults is poorly understood. By using Iyengar Yoga (IY) as a probe for PGD neurobiology, this pilot project aims to address this critical gap.

Full description

Our goal is to conduct a pilot study to examine in PGD the modulating effects of 10-week IY on circulating endocannabinoid and emotion processing brain circuit, and the associations between biological changes and clinical response.

Enrollment: 68 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 40+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Male or female greater than or equal to 40 years of age
• Bereavement >6 months
• Score greater than or equal to 25 on the Inventory of Complicated Grief (ICG)
• Presence of PGD (subsyndromal and syndromal)
• Adequate visual and auditory acuity

Exclusion criteria

• Delirium/unstable medical conditions
• Lifetime history of neurological illnesses: seizures, stroke, dementia of any etiology, severe head injury, brain tumor or surgery
• Serious back, joint or neck injuries within the past 3 months
• Currently practicing yoga
• Gross structural abnormalities on T1-weighted images
• Lifetime history of the following psychiatric disorders: bipolar or psychotic disorders, including psychotic depression
• Current alcohol/drug abuse or dependence
• Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contraindications
• Acute suicidality

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

68 participants in 3 patient groups

Iyengar Yoga

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will engage in 10 weekly IY classes

Treatment:

Other: Iyengar Yoga

Socialization Control

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants will engage in 10 weekly socialization control group sessions

Treatment:

Other: Socialization Control

Healthy Comparison Group

No Intervention group

Description:

A group of participants will also be followed for 10 weeks