An interventional study of Lymphatic Pump Osteopathic Manipulative Therapy in Pneumonia, Sinusitis and Bronchitis, sponsored by Geisinger Clinic. Recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 65 Years to 100 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-08-11.
Sponsored by Geisinger Clinic · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment
This study is to see Osteopathic Manipulative Therapy, or OMT, can aid in treating patients being seen for respiratory illness and associated symptoms. The hypothesis is that the addition of OMT therapy, alongside other standard care (such as a medication), can help lessen patient symptoms sooner than just other treatment alone, and the duration of the condition will shorten as well.
Respiratory illness is a common complaint seen routinely in primary care. Illness is a common cause of reduced productivity, general discomfort and missed time from work. Osteopathic manual therapy (OMT) and the lymphatic pump is used frequently among osteopathic physicians to treat patients with infections. Many osteopathic physicians have anecdotal reports of patient having reduced respiratory symptoms reported in follow up care from patients. OMT is a useful, low-cost treatment and can help reduce duration of illness symptoms, improve patients' comfort and accelerate their return to their productive lives.
There have been few studies on an outpatient level quantifying this improvement. Previous research in other models have showed benefits of OMT to help reduce illness. Studies in a rat model have shown reduced S. pneumonia bacterial load in the lung after lymphatic pump. Additional rat studies demonstrated improved benefit with lymphatic pump in addition to antibiotic treatment. In a dog model, lymphatic pump has been shown to increase cytokine flow to the thoracic duct. In humans, OMT has shown to improve secretory immunoglobulin A levels in stressed student population. In the hospital setting, OMT for patients with pneumonia has shown to decrease hospital length of stay 5. OMT has been a known useful additional treatment to pneumonia, however there are few prospective studies on treatment of pneumonia and respiratory illness in the outpatient setting.
This study is designed to support evidence that patients with a recent diagnosis of upper respiratory illness, sinusitis, bronchitis, or pneumonia who receive lymphatic pump OMT experience reduced severity and length of symptoms. After informed consent, patients of ages 65-100 years of age who are diagnosed with a respiratory illness will be randomized to either standard care without OMT, or standard care plus OMT. Patients will be provided an electronic survey to quantify symptoms of cough, congestion, and malaise on both the day of illness diagnosis followed by the same survey 5 days later. Survey results comparing day of diagnosis and 5 days later will be recorded in a secure database and analyzed with appropriate statistical testing. The goal of this study is to show how the lymphatic pump can reduce both severity and duration of symptoms related to respiratory illness.
1,564 studies on the registry are indexed under Pneumonia; 265 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 68 is below the median of 129 across 975 interventional studies indexed under Pneumonia.
Browse Pneumonia studies →Geisinger Clinic is the lead sponsor of 127 studies on the registry; 17 are open to participants now.
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Exclusion Criteria:
Patients in the control group will receive normal standard care, including any prescriptions, follow-up instructions, etc., as given by the provider to help treat their condition.
Patients will receive lymphatic pump OMT therapy in addition to other standard care (similar to the control patients, this would be a medication, follow-up instructions, etc.)
Procedure: Lymphatic Pump Osteopathic Manipulative Therapy
OMT is a series of manual pressure and physical stimulation among various parts of the body to stimulate fluid movement and immune response in patients with various symptoms and disease. This may help with conditions such as edema, clearance of infections, facilitate healing and circulation, and bolster the immune response. Specifically, the lymphatic pump type of OMT targets the head, neck, thoracic region, lumbar and sacral regions, pelvis, arms, legs, and abdomen.
Also known as: Lymphatic Pump OMT
To address the magnitude in which lymphatic pump OMT improves respiratory illness symptom severity and overall sickness duration when combined with standard care treatment.
Survey given to patients will provide feedback to capture their symptom severity at the time of diagnosis and 5 days post-diagnosis
Time frame: Through study completion of up to one year.
Plan to share: No — There is no direct intent to share individual participant data related to this study. However, per institute policy, records of data generated during this study will be de-identified and will be kept for at least 6 years within the institutes secured database and then destroyed. Prior to destruction, the data will have the OPTION of being used for other Geisinger institutional review board-approved research if appropriate.
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