Volume and patterns of physical activity in heart failure patients

Background: To compare the volume and patterns of physical activity (PA) in heart failure (HF) patients with healthy Controls and cardiac patients at risk of developing HF (At-risk). Purpose: To compare the volume and patterns of physical activity (PA) in heart failure (HF) patients with healthy Controls and cardiac patients at risk of developing HF (At-risk). Methods:We monitored the energy expenditure (EE) of 107 participants (HF: n= 45,At-risk: n= 34,Controls: n= 28) over a 4 day period using SeanseWearTM Mini Armbands. PA outcomes included time spent in different PA intensities, (sedentary, 3METs) steps, total daily EE (DEE), PA expended energy (PAEE), and the patterns of PA in bouts of ≥10min. Results: After adjusting for gender, BMI, LVEF and the number ofmonitoring days,DEE and PAEEwere lower in the patient groups [p< 0.001]. Both patients groups spent more time sedentary and took fewer steps each day compare to Controls, but there were no differences between At-risk and HFgroups.Only themild intensity PAwas comparable across three groups. Finally, the analysis of patterns showed that the MVPA completed by the HF patients, was not accumulated in bouts of ≥10min. Conclusion(s): The At-risk and HF patients were more sedentary than our Controls but both patient groups were capable of completing as much mild PA as the Controls. Implications:Results suggest that, the first step in cardiac rehabilitationmight be to simply focus on replacing sedentary behavior with mild PA.