Active clinical trials for "Heart Failure"

Informal caregivers provide a majority of care for patients during serious illness. Lack of preparation and completion may leave caregivers less capable of caring for a loved one or making crucial decisions influencing care. This study will examine whether a preparation and completion intervention reduces caregiver anxiety, depression, anticipatory grief, and burden and improves patient quality of life and health care use.

This proposal examines use of a clinical reminder to the primary provider of patient with a high B type natriuretic peptide but no prior imaging. Electrical Medical Record-based Intervention to Determine whether Clinical Reminders Improve Heart Failure Management in Patients with High BNP Values and Unknown LVEF.

We propose to study a strategy empirically applied for the past 6 months at a high volume LVAD center (Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute). This utilizes an ultra conservative device programming strategy to maximize battery longevity, avoid inappropriate implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) therapy, improve quality of life through reduction in overall shock burden, and potentially avoid unnecessary device generator changes prior to transplant. Avoiding CIED (cardiac implantable electronic device) change out device procedures prior to transplant is desirable.

The CHROMED project focuses its investigation on the applicability of an integrated solution for a pathological condition which: a) is very prevalent in ageing patients and b) severely impairs quality of life: COPD with other typical comorbidities such as congestive heart failure and sleep disordered breathing. A specific ICT platform in combination with a set of innovative devices will be used to collect and process useful clinical data at the patient's home and used to optimize their medical treatment. To evaluate the impact of this solution, an international multi-centric randomized control trial will be implemented in five European regions: United Kingdom, Sweden, Estonia, Spain and Slovenia, representing different social and organizational contexts in Europe.

Heart failure is a chronic disease associated with an increasing risk of morbidity, disability, repeated hospitalizations and mortality. Telemedicine could promptly identify signs of worsening cardiac disease in order to improve elderly patients' home care and quality of life by reducing the need of hospital admissions and sanitary costs. The investigators present a randomized, parallel-group trial to test the ability of a multiparametric remote monitoring system, in addition to standard care, to promptly identify worsening of heart failure and prevent hospital admission and mortality.

We will evaluate the end to end remote monitoring system in a less controlled environment and concurrently develop the infrastructure to support the back end of the system

Based on limited published epidemiological data, up to an alarming 1 in 50 surgical inpatients die within 30 postoperative days. Based on our own data from the B-Unaware (NCT00281489) and BAG-RECALL (NCT00682825) clinical trials, 30-day postoperative mortality among high-risk surgical patients is comparable to this at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, and 1-year mortality among high-risk surgical patients may be as high as 10%. Short- and intermediate-term postoperative mortality is therefore a pressing public health concern. Similarly, postoperative major morbidity - including delirium, stroke, myocardial infarction, atrial fibrillation, blood clots, renal dysfunction, wound infection, pneumonia, respiratory failure, loss of functionality, and chronic pain - occurs commonly and affects a substantial proportion of surgical patients, critically ill patients and patients undergoing procedures for chronic pain. Many factors associate strongly and independently with postoperative mortality and major morbidity: patient age, functional status, comorbid medical conditions, and duration and invasiveness of surgery, among others. It is a strategic priority to identify pre- and intraoperative risk factors that are subject to modification.

The combined diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart failure (HF) is common but often missed because of similarities in clinical presentation, risk factors, and patient characteristics. The concurrent presence of both diseases worsens the limitations in exercise capacity and quality of life that patients experience with either disease alone. This pilot study will test the feasibility of a yoga program conducted in patients' homes using multi-point interactive videoconferencing ("Tele- Yoga") for patients with combined COPD/HF diagnoses. The investigators hypothesize that patients who receive a yoga program at home, compared to an educational control group, will experience fewer physical symptoms and better quality of life.

Cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) using biventricular pacing (BiVP) is established as an effective treatment for heart failure. Unfortunately up to 45% of patients do not respond, with no improvement in symptoms or cardiac size. Reducing the proportion of non-responders has become the key research focus in CRT. Targeting the position of the left ventricular (LV) pacing lead within the coronary vein network has previously been shown to increase the proportion of responders to CRT. Several techniques have been tried for targeting lead position, of which the best investigated are the use of speckle-tracking echocardiography to target the lead position to the site of latest mechanical activation of the left ventricle, and the use of invasive monitoring to select the pacing site at which the greatest acute haemodynamic response (AHR) to BiVP occurs. Both techniques are limited by groups of patients in whom the techniques are not possible or provide limited useful information. The relationship between these two measures is unknown - there are no previous studies that have investigated correlation between the site of latest mechanical activation determined by echo and the site of maximal AHR. It is likely that a hybrid technique using both of these investigations might allow optimal lead positioning in more patients, or that if the information is shown to be equivalent, more streamlined techniques can be designed. This study will also be able to contribute towards several important secondary questions. In particular the investigators will study the possibility of using non-invasive cardiac output monitoring (NICOM) to assess haemodynamic response rather than an intravascular pressure monitor wire. The investigators also wish to assess whether the site of latest mechanical activation is changed by right ventricular pacing.

Cardiac pacing is the only effective treatment for symptomatic bradycardia. The right ventricular apex (RVA) has become the most frequently used ventricular pacing site. However, RVA pacing has been shown to cause left ventricular (LV) dyssynchrony wich can lead to LV dysfunction and development of heart failure. Recent studies in animals have demonstrated that pacing at the LV septum induces significantly less ventricular dyssynchrony than RVA pacing and is able to improve LV function to a similar degree as biventricular (BiV) pacing. In addition it was shown that a LV septum lead can be placed permanently by driving a lead with extended helix from the RV side through the inter-ventricular septum into the LV endocardial layer. This was shown to be a feasible and safe procedure and lead stability was shown during four months of follow-up in otherwise healthy and active canines. LV septum pacing may therefore be a good treatment alternative in patients with symptomatic bradycardia, as well as patients with an indication for cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). The purpose of this study is to translate the findings from preclinical studies to the clinical situation by investigating the feasibility, long-term lead stability and safety of LV septum pacing by transvenous approach through the inter-ventricular septum in patients.