Can remote yoga help heart failure patients to reduce stress and increase physical activity? A research team from the cardiology clinic and intensive care unit at Linköping University Hospital is investigating this.

- As far as we know, our project is the first in the world to test teleyoga, i.e. medical yoga led by a yoga therapist remotely via the web. We hope that this will be a way for more people to practice yoga and perhaps also participate in other physical activity remotely from home, for example patients who for various reasons find it difficult to get to a training centre.

So says Anna Strömberg, a professor at the Department of Medicine and Health at Linköping University and a nurse at the heart failure clinic, cardiology clinic in Linköping. Together with her research team, she is now working intensively on a study to find out whether teleyoga could increase physical activity, improve quality of life and reduce depression and anxiety in intensive care patients and patients with heart failure, for example. The research team includes Lotti Orwelius, associate professor and specialist nurse in intensive care (ANOPIVA at US).

Getting back on track faster

- We have seen both of these groups of patients affected by their stay in the healthcare system. It is traumatic to be hospitalised in intensive care or admitted urgently for heart failure. Many barely remember their time in hospital afterwards, and have cognitive problems such as difficulty following conversations. In this project, we want to investigate whether medical yoga can be a way for these patients to get back to life more quickly, to lower the stress threshold and find themselves, so to speak," explains Lotti Orwelius, who is an associate professor in health-related quality of life after intensive care.

The idea has been around for a long time, but in order to carry out the study, they had to test the best technology for patients to do yoga online.

- "We already knew that medical yoga is an effective form of exercise for heart failure patients, for example, but now we have the opportunity to test new techniques and also introduce new groups of patients. There is no study on teleyoga in these patient groups, so we are really breaking new ground here," says Anna Strömberg.