Intermittent claudication and physical exercise: effectiveness of a home-based program

Abstract

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) has a high incidence in general population and 12% to 20% of population with more than 60 years has already clinical symptoms, such as intermittent claudication (IC), pain, loss of strength and functional incapacity. There are already some studies which suggest the possible positive effects of physical exercise in functional consequences of PAD. The purpose of this study was to verify the results of a home-based (HB) weekly supervised physical exercise program in patients with IC in consequence of PAD in lower limbs, and observe the medium number of diary steps walked by the subjects of our study. Fourteen subjects (72.4±6.7 years) with IC participated in our study. Through the 6 minutes walk test (6MWT) we have assessed the distance until claudication (DC) (distance walked until pain), maximal distance walked (MDW) (distance walked until maximal pain) and functional capacity (FC) (total number of meters walked in6MWT). We assessed also the rate of perceived exertion (RPE) with CR10 of Borg and the highest number of repetitions of heel elevation. We have applied a HB program during 8 weeks. This program included daily execution of heel elevations for leg muscles and a walk. Results show elevation in DC (178,8±75.5 vs 259.6±116.7; p=0.01), MDW (255.7±104.4 vs 326.5±137.9; p=0.008), FC (299.1±115.1 vs (389.6±102.1; p=0.000) and EH (42.1±14.7 vs 59.9±21.6; p=0.002), respectively before and after HB program. The RPE has also decreased (3.1±1.1 vs 2.6±0.6) but not significantly. The number of steps walked and observed with a pedometer was 4990±1872 steps a day. Conclusions – A weekly supervised HB program with walk and strength training of leg muscles shows effectiveness with these patients in the relief of symptoms of IC.

Keywords

• exercício físico, claudicação intermitente, programa domiciliário, distância de claudicação, distância máxima de marcha, teste 6 minutos de marcha