Purpose: Exercise testing modalities to assess the effects of a given intervention should prove to be reliable and reproducible. This study reports on test-retest reproducibility of the 3-min shuttle walking and step testing exercise protocols to assess exertional dyspnea and exercise physiology in COPD patients. / Methods: Stable COPD patients (N=43; 65 +/- 6.5 years; FEV1 = 49 +/- 16% pred.) equipped with a portable Jaeger Oxycon MobileRTM metabolic system repeated the walking or stepping tests on two occasions separated by 7 to 14 days. At each visit, participants performed, in a randomized order, four externally paced 3-min bouts of shuttle walking at speeds of 1.5, 2.5, 4.0 and 6.0 km·h-1 or of stepping at a constant rate of 18, 22, 26 and 32 steps·min-1, respectively. Each exercise bout was separated by a 10-min rest period. Ventilation, heart rate, gas exchange parameters and Borg dyspnea score were obtained for each bout during the last 30-seconds of exercise. / Results: The majority of patients completed stepping or walking at the slowest cadence but only 33% completed walking at 6.0 km·h -1 and 40% completed stepping at 32 steps·min-1. Test-retest Pearson correlation coefficients for ventilation, heart rate, gas exchange parameters and dyspnea scores over the four exercise bouts, all exceeded 0.80 with the highest coefficient found for ventilation (r≥.95). Intra-class correlation coefficients were similar to Pearson. Bland & Altman representation showed that a similar proportion of dyspnea data points (92 vs. 96%) lied within 2 SD of the mean difference between test-retest values for dyspnea Borg scores during walking and stepping. / Conclusion: Results show very good reproducibility for both 3-min shuttle walking and stepping exercise protocols in patients with COPD. / This study was supported by an unrestricted grant from Boehringer-Ingelheim/Pfizer.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.116085 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Henophy, Sara Catherine, 1983- |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 003163669, proquestno: AAIMR67027, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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