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Cardiovascular stress during a contemporary stroke rehabilitation program: is the intensity adequate to induce a
Marilyn J MacKay-Lyons1, Lydia Makrides
1School of Physiotherapy, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada. m.mackay-lyons@dal.ca
Objectives:
To investigate the level of cardiovascular stress of physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) sessions of a contemporary stroke rehabilitation program and to identify therapeutic activities that elicit heart rate responses adequate to induce a training effect.
Design:
A descriptive, longitudinal study with heart rate and activity monitoring of PT and OT sessions at biweekly intervals, 2 to 14 weeks poststroke.
Setting:
An acute inpatient stroke unit and inpatient and outpatient stroke rehabilitation units.
Participants:
A consecutive sample of 20 patients with ischemic stroke who participated in inpatient and outpatient stroke rehabilitation.
Intervention:
Observation of routine PT and OT sessions for patients poststroke without influencing the extent and content of the sessions.
Main Outcome Measure:
Time per session in which heart rate was within the calculated target heart rate zone.
Results:
Time per PT session spent in target heart rate zone was low (2.8+/-0.9 min), and per OT session was negligible (0.7+/-0.2 min) over the course of rehabilitation.
Conclusions:
The PT and OT sessions between 2 and 14 weeks poststroke did not elicit adequate cardiovascular stress to induce a training effect.