Long-Term Exercise Training Therapy Versus Usual Care in Patients With Schizophrenia (LEXUS)

St. Olavs Hospital

Status: Completed

Conditions: Schizophrenia

Treatments: Behavioral: Exercise therapy; Other: Follow-up care as usual

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02743143

2015/1611

Details and patient eligibility

About

Patients with schizophrenia have disabling symptoms and cognitive deficits that limit motivation, drive, social- and occupational performance, quality of life and self-efficacy. Schizophrenia also leads to a high risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. Explanatory trials suggest that exercise improves cognitive functioning, symptoms, and quality of life, and reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease. However, due to this illness, the participation in regular exercise is challenging. In this study it will be tested if patients with schizophrenia can participate in long-term exercise therapy, and whether long-term supervised exercise therapy is more beneficial than today's usual care.

Enrollment: 48 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) schizophrenia, schizotypal or delusional disorders (F20 to F29)
• able to carry out long-term exercise.
• capable of giving informed consent.

Exclusion criteria

• contra-indication for exercise training and testing according to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) specifications (life threatening or terminal medical conditions; not able to carry out intervention or test procedures; current pregnancy; mothers less than 6 months post-partum).
• patients under admittance to an acute psychiatric ward.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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48 participants in 2 patient groups

Exercise therapy

Experimental group

Description:

High aerobic intensity training and maximal strength training 2 times per week in 1 year at the Hospital's Exercise Training Clinic. Patients receive comprehensive support from Trondheim municipal administration to facilitate adherence.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Exercise therapy

Follow-up care as usual

Active Comparator group

Description:

The usual care (UC) group will receive the usual physical activity offered by the primary health care system. UC includes the traditional physical activity advice from the Health Directorate. The UC group are invited to supervised exercise at the exercise training Clinic after 1 year.

Treatment:

Other: Follow-up care as usual