A Walking Intervention to Improve Fatigue and Quality of Life in Lupus: A Randomized, Controlled Trial
Abstract
Rationale: Fatigue (or a feeling of severe tiredness) is a major concern to individuals with lupus. Most people with lupus experience fatigue that interferes with other parts of their lives, even when disease activity measured by their doctor is minimal. Some research has shown that people with the highest levels of fatigue are the least active. There have been a few studies that have tested physical activity programs in lupus. These programs have some small effects on fatigue, but all of these programs have required participants to attend structured activities or classes or go to special facilities, which means they are easily available. Objective: The proposed study will test a simple pedometer-based walking program, to find out if it can successfully reduce fatigue and improve other aspects of quality of life, such as pain, sleep disturbances, or feelings of depression or anxiety, by helping people with lupus increase their physical activity. Aims: The project has two primary aims: Aim 1: Test whether the pedometer-based physical activity program leads to increases in physical activity, measuring mainly by the average number of steps per day. Aim 2: Test whether the pedometer-based physical activity program leads to decreases in fatigue and improvement in other areas, such as reducing pain, improving sleep, or reducing feelings of depression. Focus Area: This project addresses the focus area of “Improving quality of life for individuals living with lupus,” with emphasis on symptom control and challenges that, when addressed, make day-to-day living with lupus easier and life more fulfilling. What types of patients will this research help, and how will it help them? Most people with lupus have problems with fatigue. If we find that increasing physical activity in a gradual way helps to reduce fatigue, this research could be helpful to most people with lupus. The physical activity program we are testing is simple, based on increasing walking, and could easily be started and followed by almost everyone. Most smart phones include an activity tracker that measures daily steps, so no special equipment would be needed. Increasing activity likely will have some direct health benefits as well, such as reducing risk of cardiovascular disease. What are the clinical applications, benefits, and risks? Results from this study could show that increasing physical activity makes people with lupus feel better by reducing fatigue and improving other symptoms. Previous studies among people with lupus have shown that increasing physical activity does not increase disease activity. Increasing activity could cause muscle soreness or actual increases in fatigue. We have designed the program with small increases in activity though, to reduce the chances of these things happening. What is the projected time it may take to achieve a patient-related outcome? This project will take 4 years. We think it will take us about 2 years to recruit enough people to be in the study. Each person will be in the intervention for 21 weeks. After everyone has completed the study, we will analyze the data and publish our results. The program itself is about 4 months long, and we hope the participants will have improvements during that time. What is the likely impact of this study on the understanding, prevention, diagnosis, and/or treatment of lupus? When physicians treat lupus, they do not usually focus on physical activity, mostly because no one really knows how well it works to make people feel better. But when asked, people with lupus say they would like “wholistic” treatments, not just medicine. The program we will test is a type of wholistic treatment. We hope this study will show that small, regular increases in physical activity, just walking, help people feel less tired and improve other symptoms of lupus.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Dec 05, 2021
- Source ID
- W81XWH2110457
Entities
People
- Patricia Katz
Organizations
- United States Army
- University of California, San Francisco