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The effect of breathing exercises and mindset with or without cold exposure on mental and physical health in persons with a spinal cord injury—a protocol for a three-arm randomised-controlled trial

Spinal Cord (2024)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Study design

A three-arm randomized controlled trial.

Objectives

To investigate the effects of the Wim Hof Method (WHM), with (WHM-C) and without cold exposure (WHM-NC), on mental and physical health in persons with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI).

Setting

Rehabilitation centre (assessments and once-weekly intervention sessions) and home-based (daily intervention sessions).

Methods

Sixty adults with chronic SCI will be randomised (1:1:1) to one of three groups: participants in the intervention groups (i.e., WHM-C and WHM-NC) will engage in a 7-week intervention, with one weekly practice session at the rehabilitation centre and a daily WHM session at home. WHM-NC will consist of breathing exercises and mindset, while participants in WHM-C will partake in breathing exercises, mindset and cold exposure. Participants allocated to usual care (UC) will not receive the WHM intervention. The primary outcome is mental health reported via the Mental Health Inventory (MHI)-5, while secondary outcomes include circulating inflammatory and metabolic marker concentration, pulmonary function, body composition, sleep quality, spasticity, chronic pain and psychological stress.

Ethics and dissemination

Ethics approval has been obtained from the medical ethics committee of the Máxima Medical Centre (Veldhoven, the Netherlands; identifier: w22.069). If shown efficacious in improving mental health, as well as physical health, in persons with chronic SCI, the low cost and accessibility of the WHM allows it to be directly implemented in SCI rehabilitation.

Trial registration number

NCT05704322.

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Data availability

The de-identified datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study will be available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, USA

    Sven Hoekstra

  2. School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

    Sven Hoekstra

  3. Reade Center for Rehabilitation & Rheumatology, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Frank Ettema, Max van der Bijll, Vera van der Sterren, Ellen van Binsbergen, Ludwine van Orsouw & Wendy Achterberg

  4. Department of Human Movement Sciences, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam Movement Sciences, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Hein Daanen, Thomas Janssen & Sonja de Groot

  5. Amsterdam Rehabilitation Research Center Reade, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Thomas Janssen & Sonja de Groot

Authors
  1. Sven Hoekstra
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  2. Frank Ettema
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  8. Hein Daanen
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  10. Sonja de Groot
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Contributions

SV, FE, MvdB, VvdS, EvB, LvO, WA, HD, TJ and SdG were responsible for designing the study. SH and SdG were responsible for writing the manuscript. FE, MvdB, VvdS, EvB, LvO, WA, HD and TJ provided feedback on/revised the product.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sonja de Groot.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

Funded by Dr. C.J. Vaillant Fonds, W.M. de Hoop Stichting, Ars Donandi / Yske Walther fonds, and Reade foundation. Financial disclosure statements have been obtained, and no conflicts of interest have been reported by the authors or by any individuals in control of the content of this article.

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Hoekstra, S., Ettema, F., van der Bijll, M. et al. The effect of breathing exercises and mindset with or without cold exposure on mental and physical health in persons with a spinal cord injury—a protocol for a three-arm randomised-controlled trial. Spinal Cord (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41393-024-00976-9

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