TOPLINE:
Compared with supervised treadmill workouts at a gym, which is considered first-line therapy for walking impairment in lower extremity peripheral artery disease (PAD), exercising at home significantly improves 6-minute walking (6MW) distance, but not maximal treadmill walking distance, results of a new meta-analysis show.
METHODOLOGY:
- The analysis included five randomized clinical trials with a total of 719 participants, mean age 68.6 years, all led by researchers at Northwestern University, Chicago, that compared either supervised treadmill or home-based walking exercise with a nonexercise control group in people with PAD (defined as Ankle Brachial Index ≤ 0.90).
- All trials measured 6-minute walk (6MW) distance (walking as far as possible in 6 minutes), treadmill walking performance, and outcomes from the Walking Impairment Questionnaire (WIQ), which includes distance, walking speed, and stair-climbing domains, at baseline and at 6 months.
- Supervised treadmill exercise interventions included three individualized exercise sessions per week with an exercise physiologist at an exercise center, and home-based exercises involved walking near home 5 days per week, both for up to 50 minutes per session.
TAKEAWAY:
- After adjusting for study, age, sex, race, smoking, history of myocardial infarction, heart failure, and baseline 6MW distance, the study found both exercise interventions were better than nonexercise controls for 6MW distance.
- Compared with supervised treadmill exercise, home-based walking was associated with significantly improved mean 6MW distance (31.8 m vs. 55.6 m; adjusted between-group difference: −23.8 m; 95% confidence interval, −44.0 to −3.6; P = .021), and significantly improved WIQ walking speed score.
- However, home-based walking was associated with significantly less improvement in maximal treadmill walking distance, compared with supervised treadmill exercise (adjusted between-group difference: 132.5 m; 95% CI, 72.1-192.9; P < .001).
IN PRACTICE:
Home-based walking exercise “circumvents” barriers to accessing supervised exercise such as having to travel to a facility, said the authors, who noted the new data “demonstrated a large and consistent effect of home-based walking exercise on improved 6MW distance and also significantly improved the WIQ walking speed score, compared with supervised treadmill exercise.”
SOURCE:
The study was conducted by Neela D. Thangada, MD, Northwestern University, Chicago, and colleagues. It was published online in JAMA Network Open.
LIMITATIONS:
Data were combined from different randomized clinical trials that were led by one investigative team, and reported comparisons were not prespecified. Comparisons between supervised and home-based exercise lacked statistical power for the WIQ distance and stair-climbing measures.
DISCLOSURES:
The study was sponsored by the National Center for Research Resources and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Thangada reports no relevant financial relationships. Disclosures for study coauthors can be found with the original article.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.