Effects of regular and intermittent exercise on peripheral arterial disease

INTRODUCTION It has been largely demonstrated as physical exercise can improve the free pain time of the lower limb in case of peripheral arterial disease(PAD). A modern approach is exercise as prescription program where the duration and the intensity of the exercise are established around the pain's onset. AIM it is of evaluating the effect by maintaining aerobic exercise as a repetitions. METHOD An hypertensive man, 65 years old , affected by PAD and waiting the surgical treatment , was enrolled . He was revaluated every three months with specific tests. The exercise intensity was calculated from the 6MW test and it was established, following the ACSM guidelines . The intensity of the exercise has been closely related to the pain onset. Global meters of walk , Heart Rate and Blood Pressure at the beginning and at the of the test with the evaluation of the exercise tolerance by CR10 scale other specific measures were considered. Time free of pain and meters walked in absence of leg's pain , were the most important to evaluate the benefit of the physical program prescribed.BMI, Waist and hip circumference, water body distribution by Bioimpendance analysis were calculated. RESULTS After 6 months of regular and unsupervised exercise, all the antropometrics parameters (hip and waist circumferences) were significantly reduced and power and flexibility parameters resulted to be improved. In addition the parameters strictly related to the peripheral arterial disease , specially the free pain time and the distance walked in autonomy were improved The patient has had the possibility to delay the time of the surgical treatment . In any case he followed the program after the intervention to maintain the well being of the other leg. CONCLUSIONS An unsupervised and home-made aerobic exercise can be considered in all the stages of the peripheral arterial disease. Standardization of the main parameters to follow the patients need to be better investigated.