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A UWA-led 12-month pilot study hopes to give patients with chronic heart failure more bang for their buck during their rehabilitation, and is winning awards on the way.

“Chronic heart failure patients are characterised by breathlessness and undue fatigue on exertion. Interestingly, research has demonstrated that the heart is not the only limiting factor these patients experience but also secondary issues such as their muscles simply not working like they should,” says Sports Science, Exercise and Health PhD student Lauren McKeown.

“This leads to even further decreases in their ability to be physically active. Given that low oxygen delivery affects the whole body, our research focuses on how exercise can improve the quality of life and lifespan of patients, and most importantly what kind of exercise will maximize benefits without resulting in overexertion.”

Lauren’s research compares the affect eccentric and concentric cycling has on patients as a form of rehabilitation exercise.

“Eccentric exercise is where muscles lengthen as oppose to shorten, such as controlled lowering of a weight. Concentric exercise on the other hand is when muscles shorten, which occurs when we lift a weight up. An eccentric bicycle therefore has a motor that makes the pedals move in a backwards direction and patients experience resistance when they push forward,” she says.

“What we found was that chronic heart failure patients were able to complete the same amount of eccentric and concentric exercise, however oxygen demand, or exertion, was significantly lower during eccentric cycling.”

“We know that exercise rehabilitation helps patients with their condition and enables them to be more physically active. Obviously it’s a catch-22 however because having chronic heart failure limits the amount of exercise you can do, so it’s really important we find out how to get greatest bang for buck.”

It is the first time eccentric and concentric exercise has been studied in chronic heart failure patients using a within-subject design which is when one set of participants are tested more than once and their scores compared. Lauren was recognised at the Exercise and Sports Science Australia national conference last month for this work when she was awarded Best Young Investigator.

“It was great to have the research recognised but now we’re looking forward. We’ve found through the pilot study that symptoms can improve with eccentric exercise, therefore in theory this should lead to greater longevity for chronic heart failure patients,” she says.

“That’s what we will aim to demonstrate in the larger study and also look at how we can roll it out into a practical, accessible format.”