Vibration Exercise for Crohn's to Observe Response

Background: Crohn's disease (CD) is a long-term inflammatory condition of the digestive system. People with CD often have unpredictable and debilitating symptoms, including abdominal pain, diarrhoea and fatigue. In addition, they require long-term treatment with frequent negative effects and often need surgery and hospitalisations. Therefore, people with CD report a lower health-related quality of life (HRQOL) compared with other people. Doctors are constantly trying to find new treatments to improve HRQOL and control symptoms and whole body vibration exercise could be a potential treatment. Exercise might be a simple, safe, and low-cost intervention for improving HRQOL in people with CD. This is because it has the potential to improve several aspects of physical, mental and social well-being simultaneously. Adults with CD have been shown to be less active than the general population and do not meet the recommended daily physical activity guidelines. One barrier to exercise is lack of time, however whole-body vibration exercise (where you stand and squat on a vibrating plate) can be done over a much shorter duration and at a lower intensity to gain potentially similar or at times greater benefits. More research is needed to understand the effects, both positive and negative of vibration exercise in people with CD. Aim: This study begins to understand whether undertaking a supervised 6-week vibration exercise programme for adults with mild to moderately active Crohn's disease improves HRQoL and other symptoms such as fatigue.