Document Type

Poster

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Research On Capitol Hill 2014

Publication Date

1-30-2014

Faculty Mentor

Eadric Bressel

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to quantify the efficacy of a six-week aquatic treadmill exercise program on measures of pain, balance, mobility, and muscle thickness. We received the URCO grant for research. Three participants (age = 64.5 – 10.2) with knee OA completed a six-week exercise training intervention. Outcome measures, collected before (pre) and after (post) the six-week intervention, included visual analog scales for pain, posturography for balance, a 10 m walk test for mobility, and ultrasound for muscle thickness. The exercise protocol included balance training and high-intensity interval training (HIT) in an aquatic treadmill using water jets to destabilize while standing and achieve high ratings of perceived exertion (14-19) while walking. Expected results include, reduced joint pain (pre = 50.3 – 24.8 mm versus post = 15.8 – 10.6 mm), improved balance (equilibrium pre = 66.6 – 11.0 versus post = 73.5 – 7.1), and mobility (walk pre = 8.6 – 1.4 s versus post = 7.8 – 1.1 s) after participating in the exercise protocol (p = 0.03-0.001). We expect that aquatic treadmill exercise that incorporates balance and HIT training will be well tolerated by patients with OA and may be effective at managing symptoms of OA.

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