François Bughin

The project we are interested in involves designing and developing a smartphone application for patients participating in a clinical trial about chronic respiratory diseases, as well as a desktop application for healthcare professionals involved in monitoring the patients. This system serves a dual purpose: (i) encourage patients to follow multi-activity pathways and receive feedback; (ii) enable the care team to monitor patients’ condition and notify them of milestones. In this article, we demonstrate how the main stakeholders (medical experts, physical activity specialists, nutritionists) were integrated into the requirements engineering phase, resulting in the establishment of textual specifications, UML models, and Uppaal models. This approach has proven to be beneficial in terms of sharing knowledge, validating the telerehabilitation processes, and verifying their liveness and safety properties. Despite the stakeholders’ lack of training in modelling and verification techniques, they greatly appreciated this approach.

Background: Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome is a common sleep-breathing disorder associated with adverse health outcomes including excessive daytime sleepiness, impaired quality of life and is well-established as a cardiovascular risk factor. Continuous positive airway pressure is the reference treatment, but its cardiovascular and metabolic benefits are still debated. Combined interventions aiming at improving patient's lifestyle behaviours are recommended in guidelines management of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome but adherence decreases over time and access to rehabilitation programmes is limited. Telerehabilitation is a promising approach to address these issues, but data are scarce on obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. Methods: The aim of this study is to assess the potential benefits of a telerehabilitation programme implemented at continuous positive airway pressure initiation, compared to continuous positive airway pressure alone and usual care, on symptoms and cardiometabolic risk factors of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. This study is a 6-months multicentre randomized, parallel controlled trial during which 180 obese patients with severe obstructive sleep apnea syndrome will be included. We will use a sequential hierarchical criterion for major endpoints including sleepiness, quality of life, nocturnal systolic blood pressure and inflammation biological parameters. Discussion: m-Rehab obstructive sleep apnea syndrome is the first multicentre randomized controlled trial to examine the effectiveness of a telerehabilitation lifestyle programme in obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. We hypothesize that a telerehabilitation lifestyle intervention associated with continuous positive airway pressure for 6 months will be more efficient than continuous positive airway pressure alone on symptoms, quality of life and cardiometabolic risk profile. Main secondary outcomes include continuous positive airway pressure adherence, usability and satisfaction with the telerehabilitation platform and medico-economic evaluation. Trial registration: Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT05049928. Registration data: 20 September 2021

Objective: Combining continuous positive airway pressure with physical activity (PA) might be a promising strategy to treat obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). This article describes how intervention mapping (IM) can guide the development, content, and mechanisms of action of a mobile application to promote PA in adults with OSA. Methods: To develop the program, the IM approach was followed. This article presents the first three steps of IM to develop a mixed intervention (with interventionists and a digital application) aiming to: (1) assess patients’ health problems and needs in a literature review to determine their expectations and perceived facilitators and barriers to PA behavior change and thus select the determinants of behavior; (2) formulate the expected intervention outcomes and objectives to be met to achieve the overall program goals; and (3) select and implement the behavior change techniques (BCTs) to achieve the change objectives. Results: The literature review identified the relevant determinants (e.g., self-efficacy, coping, planning, and habit) of PA behavior using the health action process approach and multiprocess action control. These results were used to specify the program outcomes for PA adapted to physical, psychological, and social parameters. Overall, 11 performance objectives and 30 change objectives were defined. Lastly, BCTs and practical applications were identified. Conclusions: The study provides a theoretical and methodological basis for researchers and practitioners given the current paucity of evidence-based PA interventions for adults with OSA. It addresses the lack of BCTs (framing and prompts/cue techniques) and meaningful behavioral determinants (identity and habit) in most interventions.

Background: Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSA) is common in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Whether OSA impacts on the ventricular remodeling post-AMI remains unclear. We compared cardiac ventricular remodeling in patients assessed by cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging at baseline and six months after AMI based on the presence and severity of OSA. Methods: This prospective study included 47 patients with moderate to severe AMI. They all underwent CMR at inclusion and at six months after an AMI, and a polysomnography was performed three weeks after AMI. Left and right ventricular remodeling parameters were compared between patients based on the AHI, AHI in REM and NREM sleep, oxygen desaturation index, and daytime sleepiness. Results: Of the 47 patients, 49% had moderate or severe OSA with an AHI ≥ 15/h. No differences were observed between these patients and those with an AHI < 15/h for left ventricular end-diastolic and end-systolic volumes at six months. No association was found for left and right ventricular remodeling parameters at six months or for the difference between baseline and six months with polysomnographic parameters of OSA severity, nor with daytime sleepiness. Conclusions: Although with a limited sample size, our proof-of-concept study does not report an association between OSA and ventricular remodeling in patients with AMI. These results highlight the complexity of the relationships between OSA and post-AMI morbi-mortality.

Background: Obesity is a major public health issue. Combining exercise training, nutrition, and therapeutic education in metabolic rehabilitation (MR) is recommended for obesity management. However, evidence from randomized controlled studies is lacking. In addition, MR is associated with poor patient adherence. Mobile health devices improve access to MR components. Objective: The aim of this study is to compare the changes in body composition, anthropometric parameters, exercise capacity, and quality of life (QOL) within 12 weeks of patients in the telerehabilitation (TR) program to those of usual care patients with obesity. Methods: This was a parallel-design randomized controlled study. In total, 50 patients with obesity (BMI>30 kg/m²) were included in a TR group (TRG) or a usual care group (UCG) for 12 weeks. Patients underwent biometric impedance analyses, metabolic exercise tests, actimetry, and QOL and satisfaction questionnaires. The primary outcome was the change in fat mass at 12 weeks from baseline. Secondary outcomes were changes in body weight, metabolic parameters, exercise capacity, QOL, patients’ adhesion, and satisfaction. Results: A total of 49 patients completed the study. No significant group × time interaction was found for fat mass (TRG: mean 1.7 kg, SD 2.6 kg; UCG: mean 1.2 kg, SD 2.4 kg; P=.48). Compared with the UCG, TRG patients tended to significantly improve their waist to hip ratios (TRG: −0.01 kg, SD 0.04; UCG: +0.01 kg, SD 0.06; P=.07) and improved QOL physical impact (TRG: +21.8, SD 43.6; UCG: −1.2, SD 15.4; P=.005). Significant time effects were observed for body composition, 6-minute walk test distance, exercise metabolism, sedentary time, and QOL. Adherence (95%) and satisfaction in the TRG were good. Conclusions: In adults with obesity, the TR program was not superior to usual care for improving body composition. However, TR was able to deliver full multidisciplinary rehabilitation to patients with obesity and improve some health outcomes. Given the patients’ adherence and satisfaction, pragmatic programs should consider mobile health devices to improve access to MR. Further studies are warranted to further establish the benefits that TR has over usual care. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03396666; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03396666

Sleep disturbances are frequent among patients with heart failure (HF). We hypothesized that self-reported sleep disturbances are associated with a poor prognosis in patients with HF. A longitudinal study of 119 patients with HF was carried out to assess the association between sleep disturbances and the occurrence of major cardiovascular events (MACE). All patients with HF completed self-administered questionnaires on sleepiness, fatigue, insomnia, quality of sleep, sleep patterns, anxiety and depressive symptoms, and central nervous system (CNS) drugs intake. Patients were followed for a median of 888 days. Cox models were used to estimate the risk of MACE associated with baseline sleep characteristics. After adjustment for age, the risk of a future MACE increased with CNS drugs intake, sleep quality and insomnia scores as well with increased sleep latency, decreased sleep efficiency and total sleep time. However, after adjustment for left ventricular ejection fraction and hypercholesterolemia the HR failed to be significant except for CNS drugs and total sleep time. CNS drugs intake and decreased total sleep time were independently associated with an increased risk of MACE in patients with HF. Routine assessment of self-reported sleep disturbances should be considered to prevent the natural progression of HF.

BACKGROUND Obesity is a major public health issue. Combining exercise training, nutrition, and therapeutic education in metabolic rehabilitation (MR) is recommended for obesity management. However, evidence from randomized controlled studies is lacking. In addition, MR is associated with poor patient adherence. Mobile health devices improve access to MR components. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to compare the changes in body composition, anthropometric parameters, exercise capacity, and quality of life (QOL) within 12 weeks of patients in the telerehabilitation (TR) program to those of usual care patients with obesity. METHODS This was a parallel-design randomized controlled study. In total, 50 patients with obesity (BMI>30 kg/m²) were included in a TR group (TRG) or a usual care group (UCG) for 12 weeks. Patients underwent biometric impedance analyses, metabolic exercise tests, actimetry, and QOL and satisfaction questionnaires. The primary outcome was the change in fat mass at 12 weeks from baseline. Secondary outcomes were changes in body weight, metabolic parameters, exercise capacity, QOL, patients’ adhesion, and satisfaction. RESULTS A total of 49 patients completed the study. No significant group × time interaction was found for fat mass (TRG: mean 1.7 kg, SD 2.6 kg; UCG: mean 1.2 kg, SD 2.4 kg; P=.48). Compared with the UCG, TRG patients tended to significantly improve their waist to hip ratios (TRG: −0.01 kg, SD 0.04; UCG: +0.01 kg, SD 0.06; P=.07) and improved QOL physical impact (TRG: +21.8, SD 43.6; UCG: −1.2, SD 15.4; P=.005). Significant time effects were observed for body composition, 6-minute walk test distance, exercise metabolism, sedentary time, and QOL. Adherence (95%) and satisfaction in the TRG were good. CONCLUSIONS In adults with obesity, the TR program was not superior to usual care for improving body composition. However, TR was able to deliver full multidisciplinary rehabilitation to patients with obesity and improve some health outcomes. Given the patients’ adherence and satisfaction, pragmatic programs should consider mobile health devices to improve access to MR. Further studies are warranted to further establish the benefits that TR has over usual care. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03396666; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03396666