Introduction and Purpose:
Exercise is one of the frequent physiological stresses that can result in cardiovascular abnormalities that are not present at rest and it can help to establish a good idea on the sufficiency of cardiac function2. The Optimal exercise stress test protocol should consider the reason of the test, the results that are expected from the test, and the individuality of the population that is being tested18, 5 The duration of the optimal test should be approximately 10 to 12 minutes14.The purpose of this research was to compare a new protocol (ARP protocol) capability in categorizing patients into high or low functional capacity categories prior to exercise with Bruce and Modified Bruce protocols
Materials and Methods
The study consisted of a sample of 73 Summa cardiac rehabilitation phase II patients from 1996 to date. Clinical and demographic data was abstracted from hard-copy and electronic cardiac rehab clinical files and were entered into a separate electronic Microsoft Access research database. Statistical analysis was conducted on SPSS version 16.0. Means, standard deviations and correlation matrices were generated. Multinomial Logistic Regression was incorporated to evaluate if there was a significant difference between treatments while controlling for peak estimated work output in METs and age at test administration.
Results:
The study consisted of 73 patients, 29 female and 44 male. The sample has mean age of 67.06 years (SD = 10.37; range = 43.39 years). The ARP is predicted most accurately (75.8%), while the other protocol, Bruce 53.8% and Modified Bruce 35.7%, are predicted with less accuracy.
Conclusions
The Accelerated Ramp Protocol (ARP) has higher accuracy in predicting the maximum work capacities in cardiac patients within the optimal time limit 8 – 12 minutes.