Central fatigue in heart failure
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Role and implications of central fatigue in limiting aerobic capacity in chronic heart failure: The head vs. heart study
IRAS ID
211045
Contact name
Klaus Witte
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Leeds
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 11 months, 28 days
Research summary
Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a complex disease one of the defining features of which is a profound exercise intolerance, which severely impairs patients' quality of life and ability to complete normal day-to-day activities such as walking. A treadmill or cycle ergometer exercise test is the gold standard technique for assessing patients' exercise intolerance, and in CHF accurately predicts risk of death, and is a significant predictor of cardiac-related hospitalisations. This project will use a new exercise test to understand whether exercise tolerance in CHF is limited because the body is not capable of performing the exercise, or because there is an exaggerated perceived effort of performing the exercise to understand how we can target the exercise limitation to improve quality of life. We will then investigate whether a drug that reduces the perceived effort of exercise can improve exercise tolerance in CHF. This is important because if this drug intervention can increase exercise tolerance, this can be investigated as an intervention that can be used to increase exercise tolerance, reduce the risk of death, and increase patient quality of life in CHF.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/YH/0046
Date of REC Opinion
31 Mar 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion