HD-DRUM Feasibility pilot v1.1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Feasibility randomised controlled pilot study of HD-DRUM - a novel motor activity (drumming) training app for people with Huntington's disease.
IRAS ID
310261
Contact name
Claudia Metzler-Baddeley
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cardiff University
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN11906973
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 11 months, 28 days
Research summary
Huntington’s Disease (HD) is an incurable disease that causes cell loss in brain regions important for movements and thinking. There are currently no NHS services that can help movement and thinking changes.
We have developed a novel motor activity app (HD-DRUM) that people with HD can use at home. This involves learning drumming sequences that gradually increase in difficulty. Drumming requires abilities of concentration, planning and making movements, and multi-tasking that are affected in HD. HD-DRUM will train these key abilities.
Previously, we found that drumming improved movement and thinking abilities in people with HD and strengthened their brain connections. However, these findings were just in a small number of people and need to be tested in larger groups. Further, we have since developed the digitised HD-DRUM app that allows optimal training delivery (neither too easy nor too hard), tracking of improvements and adherence, and increased availability of the training.
We will now test how easy it is for people with HD (at premanifest or mild-moderate stage) and healthy age and sex-matched control participants to use HD-DRUM at home for three months (15 min per day, 5 days a week). People will have some movement and thinking tests and brain scans at the beginning and the end of the study. Changes due to HD-DRUM will be compared with a standard medical care patient control group and between HD patients and healthy controls.
These tests will allow us to collect information for a future bigger clinical trial for studying the clinical effects of HD-DRUM on movement and thinking and the brain.
In the future HD-DRUM may be able to provide a remotely accessible training tool to help improve movement and thinking in HD without the risk of harmful side-effects.REC name
Wales REC 2
REC reference
22/WA/0147
Date of REC Opinion
15 Jun 2022
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion