Artery Disease Patients Show Improvement With Walking Therapy
Posted on: Wednesday, 14 January 2009, 08:27 CST
U.S. researchers said on Tuesday that people with a painful condition known as peripheral artery disease can improve their walking endurance by spending time on a treadmill.
PAD suffers often experience crippling pain and cramps even during mild exercise. But doctors believe the lack of exercise may actually be making things worse.
For the study, researchers wanted to find out whether PAD patients walking with a personal trainer could help improve the condition, which affects 8 million people in the United States.
Dr. Mary McDermott of Northwestern University, whose study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association, said it is an important new finding for patients with PAD.
"People said it was much easier for them to walk."
The pain from artery disease often escalates with exercise because it increases the demand for blood flow to the muscles. If a blockage cuts blood flow, muscles do not get enough blood, causing pain known as "intermittent claudication" that comes and goes.
Previous studies found that patients with this classic symptom benefited from exercise, but many peripheral artery disease patients do not have the pain and it has not been clear whether they would benefit from exercise.
The 156 patients involved in the study were divided into three groups: a supervised treadmill group that eventually walked 40 minutes three times a week, a group that did leg strengthening exercises three times a week and a control group that did neither.
Patients in the walking group were able to walk an extra 69 feet in a six-minute treadmill test after only six months compared with when they started. They also showed improvements in cardiovascular health, as measured by blood flow through an artery in the arm.
Those who didn’t exercise showed a decline, decreasing the distance they could walk on a treadmill by 49 steps. People in the leg exercise group were also able to climb stairs better and showed better walking performance.
McDermott said her team found that leg strengthening does have some benefit and seemingly improves quality of life.
The findings suggest that doctors should encourage patients with peripheral artery disease to exercise regularly, preferably with a personal coach standing by for guidance.
"It's particularly hard to motivate them to exercise because they get symptoms in their legs with walking," she said. "Having a trainer stand there to offer encouragement was key.” But even with no trainer, she thinks walking could help.
"Based on what I know I would say some exercise is better than no exercise," she said.
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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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