Longitudinal Changes in Exercise Capacity After Stroke

Abstract MacKay-Lyons MJ, Makrides L. Longitudinal changes in exercise capacity after stroke. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 2004;85:1608–12. Objective To determine if stroke patients without specific aerobic training experience a change in the first 6 months after stroke. Design Descriptive, longitudinal study with repeated measures of exercise capacity at 1, 2, 3, and 6 months after stroke. Setting Exercise testing laboratory in a tertiary care hospital. Participants Consecutive sample of 25 patients (mean age ± standard deviation, 64.1±13.6y) 1 month after first ischemic stroke. Interventions Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures Peak oxygen consumption (V o 2 peak) was measured by open-circuit spirometry during maximal effort treadmill walking with 15% body-weight support. Results Mean V o 2 peak increased from 14.8±5.3mL·kg −1 · min −1 at 1 month to 17.3±7.0mL·kg −1 ·min −1 at 6 months after stroke ( P =.003) or from 61.7%±16% to 71.3%±23% of age- and sex-related normative values for sedentary healthy adults ( P =.008). Conclusions Despite improvements in V o 2 peak and other indices of cardiovascular training between 1 and 6 months poststroke, substantial limitations in exercise capacity persisted. Further study is needed to determine the extent to which these limitations can be modified through aerobic conditioning.