Programming Aquatic Therapy for POTS

California State University, Dominguez Hills

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS)

Treatments: Other: Aquatic Occupational Therapy

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT07182578

IRB-FY2025-162

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this pilot study is to create, implement, and evaluate an aquatic therapy for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) program feasibility and ability to improve quality of life as determined by reduced orthostatic tachycardia, reduced POTS symptoms, and improved quality of life measures.

The main questions it aims to answer are:

Does aquatic occupational therapy reduce orthostatic tachycardia and POTS symptoms? Does aquatic occupational therapy lead to higher quality of live measures for people with POTS? Is this aquatic occupational therapy program feasible for clinicians and people with POTS?

There is no comparison group for this pilot study.

Participants will complete:

An occupational Therapy evaluation before and after program completion (3 hours total) 30 minutes at home/remote 30 minutes on-site/in-person 30 minutes of individualized occupational therapy on land

Participate in 3 aquatic therapy sessions per week, 60 minutes each for 12 weeks

Enrollment: 12 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Diagnosed with POTS, Age 18-64, Participants must be English speaking, participants must obtain a physician permission letter* * The physician letter will only state that the participant is cleared to participate in aquatic therapy, it will not confirm or state what disease the individual has in the medical records or other HIPAA information.

Exclusion criteria

• Not diagnosed with POTS, Not between the ages of 18-64*, Epilepsym Bowel incontinence

  *The reason for the age requirement is because individuals:

• under 18 have different diagnostic criteria and mechanisms for POTS than the age range specified and may respond differently to treatment

• over age 65 have different mechanisms behind POTS than younger individuals, and frequently have health conditions or factors that can be difficult to differentiate from POTS symptoms/diagnosis and would require lab work and continuous physician involvement. POTS is less common in older adults.

• The typical age of onset for POTS is generally considered to be between the ages of 15-50 years of age

• For participant's safety, the researcher needs to be able to communicate with them in the aquatic setting. English is the researcher's only language and electronic translators are not accessible/usable in the pool setting.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

12 participants in 1 patient group

Aquatic Occupational Therapy Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

All participants will participate in the aquatic occupational therapy arm. The aquatic occupational therapy intervention is divided into three progressive months: Month 1: Breathing techniques, proprioception, balance, and vestibular activities. Easy breathing and balancing moves Example: Belly breathing, water walking, toe lifts, mountain aqua yoga pose Month 2: Strength and endurance training Building strength and ability to exercise longer Example: Water marching, core exercises using dumbbells or paddles Month 3: Advanced strengthening and endurance tasks with integrated cognitive, balance, and dual-task challenges. Harder exercises and doing two things at once, like thinking and moving together Example: Dumbbell exercises while playing a word association game

Treatment:

Other: Aquatic Occupational Therapy