Neuro-cardiac Rehabilitation in Youth With Congenital Heart Disease (QUALINEUROREHAB)

University Hospital of Bordeaux

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Congenital Heart Disease

Treatments: Other: Neurocardiac rehabilitation program; Other: Standard of care

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05670132

CHUBX 2021/66

Details and patient eligibility

About

Remarkable progress in paediatric cardiology and surgery have led to the substantial increase of congenital heart disease (CHD) survivors. Long-term outcomes in rare and complex CHD have become a critical priority as three major sources of morbidity have been identified in this population: neurodevelopmental sequelae, mental health issues and reduced exercise capacity. These challenges adversely affect their quality of life and constitute a major public health issue. We seek to evaluate the efficacy of the first integrative and holistic program in Neuro-Cardiac Health associating physical and psychological rehabilitation for children with rare CHD compared to the standard of care. Children randomly assigned to the intervention will undergo a 12-week neuro-cardiac intervention including home-based adaptive physical exercise, telehealth parent and child psycho-education and child computerized cognitive training, as well in-person individual sessions of intervention reinforcement. Parents will be actively involved and will receive personalized feedback and educational resources. Children assigned to the control group will receive the standard of care in congenital cardiology. Post-intervention effects will be measured after 12-months on several outcomes including health-related quality of life (HRQoL), trained and untrained cognitive skills, mental health outcomes and cardiovascular/physical variables.

Full description

Neurodevelopmental and mental health issues and reduced exercise capacity are the most frequent long-term morbidities in youth with CHD. These problems worsen with age and play a critical role in reducing the quality of life of patients and their families. The QUALI-NEUROREHAB CHD multicentre, randomized controlled trial seeks to test the efficacy of an innovative home-based neuro-cardiac intervention to improve physical and mental health of children, adolescents and young adults with rare CHD, as assessed by the patients themselves using patient-reported outcomes and standardized assessments. Outcomes relate to changes in scores for health-related quality of life (HRQoL, primary outcome measure), neurodevelopmental and mental health outcomes, and cardiopulmonary exercise test parameters, 12 months post-enrolment, in patients with rare CHD aged 8 to 25 years old. This is a two-arm parallel design study: intervention versus control. Intervention using the neuro-cardiac rehabilitation program will be the active arm. Standard of care will be used for the control group and involves normal cardiology consultations and follow-up without intervention programs on physical activity or neurocognitive training. The intervention group will include 12 weeks of neuro-cardiac training, comprised of at-home adaptive physical exercise, telehealth consultations and computerized neurocognitive training as well in-person individual sessions of intervention reinforcement. We hypothesize an increase in the overall HRQoL score of 6 ± 14 points (over 100). With a 90% power, a bilateral alpha risk of 5%, and potentially 20% of loss to follow-up and/or missing data on the primary outcome, we need to randomize 145 patients to each group (N= 290, overall). Analysis will be performed using intent to treat (ITT) approach. We predict significant positive changes in quality of life, mental and physical health scores in patients who will be assigned to the neuro-cardiac intervention (active arm). If this intervention is effective, it can have critical public health implications for the organization and modalities of care for children with rare CHD in Europe. A neuro-cardiac rehabilitation programme tailored to the specific challenges of individuals with rare CHD would improve patient care pathways across major centers in Europe.

Enrollment: 290 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 8 to 25 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

1. Patient with a CHD of moderate to great complexity as defined in the 2019 AHA/ACC guidelines (Appendix 2)85.
2. History of cardiac surgery and/or catheter-based cardiac intervention(s) during the first year of life.
3. Age between 8 and 25 years at the time of enrolment.
4. Parental or legal guardian's consent for minors (<18 years) and personal consent for adults.
5. Social security affiliation (for France only)

Exclusion criteria

1. Unstable and/or severe heart failure: severe heart failure (class IV NYHA functional class), recent decompensated heart failure requiring hospitalisation and/or any significant change in medication (< 3 months before enrolment), systolic ventricle dysfunction (left ventricle or systemic ventricle ejection fraction < 50%)82.
2. Severe hypoxaemia: pulse oxygen saturation (SpO2) at rest <85%, and/or SpO2 at exercise <80%, and/or patient requiring oxygen therapy.
3. Pulmonary hypertension as defined by the 2020 ESC guidelines, whatever the aetiology83.
4. Significant systolic right ventricle (sRV) hypertension (sRV pressure > 50% of systemic systolic pressure).
5. Uncontrolled arrhythmia: symptomatic treated or untreated arrhythmia at rest and/or exercise, treated arrhythmia with sustained supraventricular or ventricular tachycardia on ECG monitoring or during exercise and/or CPET, occurrence or aggravation of any supraventricular or ventricular arrhythmia during exercise and/or CPET.
6. Advanced atrioventricular block (degree 2 or 3), occurrence or aggravation of any conduction disorder during exercise and/or CPET.
7. Uncontrolled arterial hypertension at rest (e.g. if the blood pressure at rest during the consultation >140/90 mmHg in adults, >95th percentile in children84).
8. Acute or recent (< 3 months) myocarditis and pericarditis.
9. Symptomatic aortic or sub-aortic stenosis (mean gradient > 50 mmHg).
10. Non-corrected coarctation of the aorta (surgical or catheter-based repair) with a clinical systolic gradient > 20 mmHg.
11. Dilatation of the aorta (aortic root > 40 mm in adults, > 2 Z-score in children85 (http://www.parameterz.com/sites/aortic-root) except in the case of repaired congenital heart disease with dilatation of the aorta inherent in the malformation and without risk of aortic dissection (tetralogy of Fallot, pulmonary atresia with IVC, common trunk artery).
12. Severe hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy.
13. Acute systemic illness.
14. Recent (<3 months) intracardiac thrombus, embolism, or thrombophlebitis.
15. Inability to follow instructions and/or complete the questionnaires, as determined by the investigator.
16. Absolute contraindications for CPET: fever, uncontrolled asthma, respiratory failure, acute myocarditis or pericarditis, uncontrolled arrhythmias causing symptoms or haemodynamic compromise, uncontrolled heart failure, acute pulmonary embolus or pulmonary infarction, and patients with mental impairment leading to inability to cooperate.
17. Inability to undergo the physical intervention: inability to physically exercise, any invasive medical intervention occurring within 6 months preceding the enrolment or scheduled during the 12-month study period (such as cardiac surgery, catheter-based intervention, orthopaedic surgery, chemotherapy for cancer, or any other significant medical treatment or intervention, as determined by the investigator).
18. Patient with a previously diagnosed severe psychiatric disorder requiring hospitalization and/or continuous specialized care by a psychiatrist, as determined by the investigator.
19. Patients who benefited from a cardiac rehabilitation within the 12 months preceding the enrolment.
20. Patients who benefited from a computerized executive function or attention training such as Cogmed Working Memory Program within the 12 months preceding the enrolment.
21. For female patients: pregnancy, pregnancy plan, or breastfeeding woman following questioning of the patient.
22. Patients deprived of liberty due to an ongoing legal procedure, adult's patient under guardianship or curatorship or unable to personally express their consent.
23. Any other clinical and/or pharmacological treatment that is believed to interfere with the study or the optimal clinical care.
24. Initiation or total withdrawal of psychotropic medication (i.e., any psychotropic medication including methylphenidate, benzodiazepines, and mood stabilizers) within the 6 months preceding the enrolment.
25. Patient participating or wishing to participate in any interventional clinical research (drug trial, medical device, non-drug trial).

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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290 participants in 2 patient groups

Neurocardiac rehabilitation program

Experimental group

Description:

The home-based neuro-cardiac rehabilitation program will consist of weekly sessions of neuro-cardiac training during 12 weeks at home. * The physical activity training consists of two 1-hour sessions of adapted physical activities per week supervised by an APA educator or equal. One weekly session is held in person, at home, and the second one in videoconference. All training sessions follow the same scheme with 30 minutes of bicycle training, adapted from high-intensity training (30-33), and 30 minutes of "free" adapted physical activities * The neuropsychological component will consist of 2 home-based weekly 25-minute sessions of computerized cognitive training via the new platform of CogMed (standard format) for the patient and 1 weekly 30/45-min teleconsultation session of neuropsychological feedback on every-day life emotional regulation and executive functioning applied to school and family life for either the parent (for ages 17 and younger) or young adults with CHD.

Treatment:

Other: Neurocardiac rehabilitation program

Standard of care

Active Comparator group

Description:

The control group will follow European recommendations for cardiology care (standard of care) without introducing any additional interventions for research purposes at the exception of primary (HRQoL questionnaires) and secondary outcomes

Treatment:

Other: Standard of care