The following is a summary of “Cardiopulmonary response during incremental shuttle walking test in a hallway versus on treadmill in Phase IV cardiac rehabilitation: a cross-sectional study,” published in the August 2023 issue of Cardiology by Osailan et al.

Incremental shuttle walking test (ISWT) is commonly used to measure functional capacity in cardiac rehabilitation, but an incremental shuttle walking test on a treadmill (ISWT-T) is suggested due to space limitations. Cardiopulmonary response and factors affecting distance achieved in ISWT-T are limited. Researchers performed a retrospective study to compare cardiopulmonary response and factors associated with distance achieved in ISWT and ISWT-T.

The study included 13 participants (66.3 ± 7.3 years, 84.6% males) in phase IV cardiac rehabilitation engaged in counterbalanced trials. Each completed an ISWT and an ISWT-T a week apart. Main outcome measures included peak heart rate (HR), systolic and diastolic blood pressure post-test, distance achieved, respiratory frequency, tidal volume (VT), minute ventilation, respiratory exchange ratio, peak oxygen uptake (VO_2PEAK). Secondary outcome measures included height, weight, waist circumference (WC), and leg length (LL).

Results demonstrated that except for (VO_2PEAK) (25.4 ± 5.8 vs. 23.7 ± 5.1, P= 0.05), there were no significant differences in cardiopulmonary responses between ISWT and ISWT-T. Age and height were significantly correlated with achieved distance in both ISWT and ISWT-T [age (r = -0.72, vs. r = -0.73, P ≤ 0.05, respectively)], [height (r = 0.68, vs. r = 0.68, P ≤ 0.05, respectively)]. Leg length (LL) correlated only with ISWT-T distance achieved (r = 0.59, P ≤ 0.05).

The study concluded that cardiopulmonary response was similar between ISWT and ISWT-T, but hallway ISWT had higher metabolic demand. The distance achieved is related to height and inversely to age.

Source: nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39999-2