Screening Versus Routine Practice in Detection of Atrial Fibrillation in the Elderly Population of Lieto (LietoAF)

University of Turku

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Atrial Fibrillation; Stroke

Treatments: Other: Subject education to pulse palpation

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01721005

T31/2012

Details and patient eligibility

About

The aim of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of patient education on feeling the own pulse irregularity in the elderly population of Lieto.

Prevalence of atrial fibrillation (AF) rises with age. Subjects have often symptoms like palpitation and discomfort but especially in elderly population there's significant quantity of persons who don't feel any symptoms and fail to seek for medical care for stroke prevention.

The main objectives in this study are to find out the prevalence of AF in the elderly population of Lieto, to assess the feasibility and reability of patient education on feeling one's pulse irregularity and the affect to the quality of life of the participating subjects and monitoring the possible increased burden to the public health care system.

The study contains two office visits with specified learning session and long-term phone-call follow-up.

Full description

The main objectives in this study are to find out the prevalence of AF in the elderly population of Lieto, to assess the feasibility of patient education on feeling one's pulse irregularity and the affect to the quality of life of the participating subjects and monitoring the possible increased burden to the public health care system.

The study contains two office visits with specified learning session and long-term phone-call follow-up. A specially trained nurse will initially give a 10 min education on pulse palpation to each person and evaluate their capacity to learn pulse palpation. During followup visits the compliance of the patient and possible new arrhythmias plus quality of life issues are recorded and their ability of pulse palpation is evaluated by artificial hand where various kinds of pulses are transmitted.

Enrollment: 200 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 75+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• patient aged 75 or over
• inhabitant of Lieto
• willing to participate

Exclusion criteria

• chronic atrial fibrillation
• ongoing anticoagulant treatment
• permanent institutional care

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

200 participants in 1 patient group

pulse palpation education

Other group

Description:

The subject is educated to pulse palpation by registered cardiac nurse. The education time is limited to 10 minutes and done according preplanned education model

Treatment:

Other: Subject education to pulse palpation