Exercise Training After Stroke Helps Patients Walk Faster, Longer

An updated Cochrane review finds that stroke patients who participate in a post-stroke walking program walk faster, longer, and more independently than nonexercisers. The review appears in The Cochrane Library.

“Cardiorespiratory training, which used walking as the mode of exercise, can improve walking ability,” says lead review author David Saunders, PhD, a lecturer in exercise physiology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Researchers looked at 24 studies that included 1,147 stroke patients. The analysis focused on how participation in fitness training programs after stroke influenced rates of death, dependence, or disability. Fitness training included cardiovascular exercise (walking or cycling), strength training (free weights or resistance bands), or a combination of cardiovascular and strength training.

A previous review hinted that cardiorespiratory training involving walking could be beneficial to stroke patients. In the current review, the increased number of randomized controlled trials “has strengthened the fairly cautious conclusions reported in 2004,” Saunders says.

“If you ask stroke patients about aspects of function that are important for them to regain, walking and ambulation are repeatedly highly rated as being important to them,” he says. “The most consistent pattern within our data related to cardiorespiratory training benefiting walking, in terms of maximum walking speed, comfortable walking speed, walking tolerance, and reliance on other people for ambulation,” Saunders says.

The study participants walked three or more days per week, usually for more than 20 minutes at a time. In exercising patients, maximum walking speed increased by about 5.6 yards per minute, and patients could cover an additional 42.5 yards in a six-minute session compared to nonexercisers, the authors reported.

Whether these benefits persist after training is finished remains unclear, Saunders says..

Source: Health Behavior News Service