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Resistance training effectiveness in patients with charcot-marie-tooth disease: Recommendations for exercise prescription1

Presented in part at the Symposium of the North American CMT Consortium, March 8, 2003, London, ON, Canada.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2003.12.025Get rights and content

Abstract

Chetlin RD, Gutmann L, Tarnopolsky M, Ullrich IH, Yeater RA. Resistance training effectiveness in patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease: recommendations for exercise prescription. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 2004;85:1217–23.

Objectives

To determine the effects of a 12-week, home-based resistance exercise program on strength, body composition, and activities of daily living (ADLs) in men and women with Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease and to design an ADL-based resistance exercise prescription template.

Design

Double-blind, placebo-controlled study.

Setting

Testing in a university setting; exercise in patients’ homes.

Participants

Twenty CMT patients who volunteered.

Intervention

Subjects progressively strength trained at home 3d/wk for 12 weeks.

Main outcome measures

Timed ADLs, isometric strength, and body composition.

Results

Absolute strength was greater in men with CMT in only 4 of 10 baseline measures (P<.05), but not when strength was normalized by lean mass. Training compliance was 87% with no gender differences. At baseline, women had 80% of normal strength in 4 of 10 measures, whereas men did not achieve 80% of normal strength in any measure. After training, women had 80% of normal strength in 8 of 10 measures, whereas men only had 80% of normal strength in 1. Training volumes and strength change scores showed no gender differences. ADLs improved after training with no gender differences (P<.05). An exercise prescription template was developed by using chair-rise time to estimate starting weights for lower body and supine rise for upper body.

Conclusions

Resistance training improved strength and ADLs equally in men and women. We designed an exercise prescription recommendation, based on ADL performance.

Section snippets

Participants

Twenty patients with CMT (11 women, 9 men; mean age, 45.2±8.9y) participated. They took part in a larger investigation of the effects of creatine monohydrate on strength in CMT.16 Volunteers were diagnosed with CMT through family history and electrophysiologic and/or genetic testing. Eighteen patients had CMT1A and 2 had axonal abnormalities more consistent with CMT type 2. Excluded were patients less than 18 years of age, people who had used nutritional supplements (vitamins excluded) or

Participant demographics

There were no differences between women and men in age (44±7y vs 46±11y), height (1.64±0.1m vs 1.76±0.1m), weight (84±25kg vs 91±22kg), or body mass index (BMI; 31±9kg/m2 vs 29±6kg/m2).

Self-reported compliance

Patients tolerated the resistance training well; the overall compliance rate was 87%±26%. Compliance with exercise training was defined as the actual number of training sessions completed divided by the possible number of training sessions. There was no difference in compliance between men (84±33%) and women

Discussion

This study showed that a simple, home-based, 12-week progressive resistance training program improved strength and ADLs and was equally effective for men and women with CMT. Furthermore, patients adhered to the ADL-based training program and suffered no injuries.

A major challenge when developing an exercise therapy program is to design a regimen with which patients will comply. To optimize compliance, our program (1) was conservative in progression to minimize muscle soreness, fatigue, and

Conclusions

The progressive resistance training program tested in this study improved strength and ADLs equally in men and women. A resistance exercise prescription template was designed for patients with CMT based on timed ADL scores for chair rise and supine rise.

Future investigations should attempt (1) to determine optimal resistance training intensity and duration for these patients, (2) to examine the combined effects of strength and endurance training in CMT, and (3) to investigate whether resistance

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