Peripheral Vascular Changes After Home-Based Passive Leg Cycle Exercise Training in People With Paraplegia: A Pilot Study

Objective: To determine the hemodynamic adaptations after home-based passive leg cycle exercise training in person with paraplegia. Design: A randomized controlled trial (small cohort). Setting: University department of physical medicine and rehabilitation. Participants: A volunteer sample of people with paraplegia (N=17). Intervention: Subjects within the experimental group performed 36 passive cycling sessions at home. Main Outcome Measures: Before and after training, we measured heart rate and maximal and minimal femoral artery blood flow velocity at rest and immediately after a 10-minute session of passive cycling by using a quantitative duplex Doppler ultrasound. For each condition, we calculated the mean blood flow velocity and velocity index (VI), used as an indicator of peripheral resistance. Results: At rest, after training, mean blood flow velocity (P=.08) and VI did not differ significantly in the experimental group compared with the pretraining values (nonparametric analysis). However, in this group, the postexercise mean blood flow velocity and VI are respectively increased and decreased after training (P <.05) compared with the pretraining values. No changes were noted in the control group. Conclusions: Six weeks of home-based passive cycling training have no significant effect on the rest hemodynamic values but increase the hemodynamic response to acute passive cycling exercise.