Increase in leg strength after outpatient cardiac rehabilitation contributes to improvement of gait speed in patients aged 75 years or older with cardiovascular disease

Abstract

【Methods】Two hundred and ninety six patients aged 75 years or older with CVD(80.5±4.5 years, 176 males and 120 females) were followed up for 5 months and received cardiac rehabilitation during hospitalization and after hospital discharge. We obtained clinical information including laboratory data and prevalence of comorbidities from medical records. We also measured quadriceps strength(QS)and 10 m comfortable gait speed at hospital discharge and 5 months after the discharge. The QS and gait speed were examined with the changes from baseline to those after the observation period(ΔQS and Δgait speed). We compared clinical parameters between baseline and after the observation period and analyzed the determinants for Δgait speed using multiple regression analysis.