A comparative study of the effects of aerobic and resisted exercises on selected cardiopulmonary parameters in patients with asthma

Abstract

Asthma is a multi-factorial disease associated with genetic, allergic, environmental, infectious, emotional, and nutritional issues. Globally, asthma affects about 300 million people and about 250,000 people die from it every year. These deaths are related to lack of proper treatment. Treatment involves controlling trigger factors, drug therapy, and other non-pharmacological methods. Although a few studies have evaluated the effects of exercises on asthma control, there is the need for well-designed outcome studies that will differentiate efficacious exercise management for asthma from those that hold little therapeutic value. This study compared the effects of aerobic and resisted exercises on selected cardiopulmonary parameters in patients with asthma.

Forty-five patients with asthma were recruited from the Respiratory Unit, Department of Medicine, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Lagos and were randomly assigned to 3 different groups. Group A underwent aerobic exercise and counselling sessions; Group B, resisted exercise and counselling sessions; and Group C had counselling sessions only. Groups A and B had exercise intervention that lasted 10-15 minutes, twice weekly for 6 weeks. Cardiopulmonary parameters were assessed at baseline and at the end of 6 weeks.

Only Group B showed significant improvements in all the cardiovascular variables (SBP: p=0.01, DBP: p=0.03, HR: p=0.02 and RPP: p=0.01). There were also significant improvements in most of the pulmonary 1 1 variables of Group A (RR: p=0.01, FEV : p=0.01, FVC: p=0.01 and FEV %: p=0.02), however, there was none in Groups B and C. Comparison of the mean changes in selected variables between the two therapeutic exercise 1 groups showed significant differences in SBP (p=0.01), DBP (p=0.04), RPP (p=0.02), RR (p=0.01), FEV 1 (p=0.01), FVC (p=0.05), FEV % (p=0.01) and IC (p=0.05).

Aerobic exercise was more effective in improving pulmonary parameters while resisted exercise was more effective in improving cardiovascular parameters in patients with asthma.

Keywords: aerobic exercise, asthma, cardiopulmonary, resisted exercise