Cardiorespiratory responses of ambulatory hemiplegic stroke survivors to treadmill walking exercises in Tehran, Iran

Stroke is one of the leading causes of disability and post challenges in the society due to impaired neuromuscular control, decreased functional mobility, balance deficits and reduced cardiorespiratory fitness, and hence physiotherapy interventions can play a significant role in facilitating individuals with impairment, disability and functional limitations. Exercise training among the post stroke population can facilitates improvement in cardiovascular, respiratory and neuromuscular function. However there appear to be a dearth of knowledge and literature on the response of cardiorespiratory parameters of stroke survivors to treadmill walking exercises in Iran. This study was therefore designed to investigate the cardiorespiratory response of ambulatory hemiplegic stroke survivors to treadmill walking exercise. The 32 participants for this study were recruited using consecutive sampling technique, in which 17 were male while 15 were female. An Informed consent and data form were used to obtain the participants’ consent and socio-demographic information. The study was a pre and post experimental design involving the participant’s own maximum walking ability on the treadmill. The Descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation were used to describe the participants’ demographic and baseline characteristics which were Age, Weight, Height, and Body Mass Index. The inferential statistics of paired t-test was used to compare the cardiorespiratory parameters of the participants’ within gender, while unpaired t-test was used for comparison between genders. The level of statistical significance was set at alpha equal 0.05. The result showed that 53.1% of the participants were male while 46.9% were female. The mean age of the participants was 52.37±10.15 years (range of 33-74 years), Mean weight was 68.82±8.6, Mean height was 1.68±0.18 and Mean BMI was 27.71±7.64 respectively. There was a significant difference between male and female participants before and after treadmill walking exercise in their Pulse rate (t=3.19, p=0.006), Systolic blood pressure (t=2.67, p=0.03) and Respiratory rate (t=6.19, p=0.001), except for Diastolic blood pressure which showed no significant difference (t=0.79, p=0.4). Comparison between male and female selected parameters all showed significant difference in their Systolic blood pressure (t=24.38, p=0.001), Diastolic blood pressure (t=9.36, p=0.001) and Respiratory rate (t=15.12, p=0.001) respectively, except for pulse rate which showed no significant difference (p = 0.86, t = 0.17). It was concluded that there was significant increase in the pulse rate, systolic blood pressure and respiratory rate following treadmill walking exercises but changes seen in diastolic blood pressure were not significant. It is recommended that treadmill walking exercise be considered by rehabilitation professionals when developing exercise prescription programs for rehabilitation of ambulatory hemiplegic stroke survivors to optimize the cardiorespiratory benefits associated with exercise. It is also recommended that Rehabilitation professionals encourage people after stroke to participate in exercise interventions such as treadmill walking exercise to improve cardiorespiratory health.