著者

Hidenori Kato Hiroki Watanabe Akira Koike Longmei Wu Kosuke Hayashi Hirotomo Konno Takeshi Machino Isao Nishi Akira Sato Hiroaki Kawamoto Kazutaka Aonuma Yoshiyuki Sankai Masaki Ieda

出版者

The Japanese Circulation Society

雑誌

Circulation Journal (ISSN:13469843)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.86, no.1, pp.60-67, 2021-12-24 (Released:2021-12-24)

参考文献数

29

被引用文献数

1 5

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Background:Aiming to establish an effective tool in new cardiac rehabilitation programs, we investigated the use of a lumbar-type hybrid assistive limb (HAL) in patients with heart failure (HF) who had difficulty in walking at the usual speed of healthy subjects (≈80 m/min).Methods and Results:We randomly assigned 28 HF patients (age, 73.1±13.8 years) to perform a sit-to-stand exercise with or without HAL. The sit-to-stand exercise was repeated as many times as possible as cardiac rehabilitation therapy over a period of 6–10 days. We measured 5 parameters before and after the completion of cardiac rehabilitation: B-type natriuretic peptide, Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB), 6-min walking distance (6MWD), 30-s chair-stand test (CS-30), and isometric knee extensor muscle strength. The SPPB and 6MWD were significantly improved, and the CS-30 score was somewhat improved, after the exercise therapy in both the HAL and non-HAL groups. The knee extensor muscle strength improved significantly in the HAL group (0.29±0.11 to 0.35±0.11 kgf/kg, P<0.01), but showed no change in the non-HAL group (0.35±0.11 to 0.35±0.13 kgf/kg, P=0.40).Conclusions:The improved knee extensor muscle strength in the HAL group suggests that the lumbar-type HAL may be an effective tool for cardiac rehabilitation in HF patients with frailty, which is a predictor of poor prognosis in HF.