Treadmill Workout Good for Chronic Stroke Survivors

Treadmill exercise by stroke survivors can benefit their hearts and brains, a group of researchers found.
Most people know that regular exercise improves fitness, lowers blood pressure and burns calories. There is widespread agreement that physical activity is good for everyone, and that exercise is one of the best ways to stave off many miseries that accumulate with the passing years. And when people do have heart attacks or break bones, exercise is a key component in rehabilitation.
But maybe not for stroke. Most doctors believed that after several months people trying to regain function after a stroke had gone as far as they were going to. If people didn’t get better after half a year they simple weren’t going to.
Recent research demonstrated that although there may be plateaus in the course of recovery, exercise can improve function years after the stroke occurred.
Findings appeared in the March issue of the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine.
The research, led by Andreas Luft of Germany’s University of Tubingen and a group of Baltimore scientists, examined the effect of six months of treadmill exercise training in university labs in chronically disabled stroke survivors.
Treadmill exercise improves fitness and walking ability in patients when initiated 6 months or more following stroke, the research found. Rapid improvement, even with rehabilitation, is rare. Between 80 percent and 90 percent of stroke survivors have a motor deficit, with walking impairments the most common. Most stroke survivors also have diminished fitness capabilities.
The study looked at peak oxygen consumption during treadmill walking between stroke survivors and healthy, but sedentary volunteers. The stroke survivors had approximately 50 percent lower levels of peak fitness- using 75 percent of their functional capacity compared with 27 percent with the healthy volunteers. Stroke volunteers also showed a poorer gait and required greater oxygen consumption to sustain their walking speeds.
The clinical program the volunteers participated in lasted 6 months and involved moderate activity training, primarily on the treadmill. The program’s lower-limb workouts include using a treadmill modified with handrails and other safety devices, as well as stair-stepping, shifting weight from foot to foot, and other exercises tailored to the patient’s abilities. The upper extremity exercises include reaching, grasping, and other repetitive movements.
For the study, 32 chronically disabled stroke survivors took part in the research. The volunteers participated in the treadmill program three times a week.


Source: Luft et. al “Post-stroke exercise rehabilitation: What we know about retraining the motor system
and how it may apply to retraining the heart.” Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine, Vol. 75, Supplement 2, March 2008, S83