exercise, the heart and CMT

[Guest guest]

(This is an older article, but important, as it involves persons with

neuromuscular diseases and mentions two CMT persons who were in the 12

week course) ~ G

1: Med Sci Sports Exerc 1984 Oct;16(5):460-5

Effect of training on the exercise responses of neuromuscular disease

patients.

Florence JM, Hagberg JM.

Patients with neuromuscular diseases have low levels of cardiovascular

fitness and they fatigue rapidly during daily activities. The purpose of

this investigation was to determine whether patients with

slowly-progressive or non-progressive neuoromuscular diseases could

complete a 12-wk training program without untoward responses, and

develop cardiovascular training adaptations. All eight patients

completed the

training program with better than 90% compliance. Resting creatine

kinase and myoglobin in the group as a whole showed no change with

training, though two patients did have definite elevations after

training.

Their VO2max increased by 25 +/- 5% with training and their relative

increase in VO2max was not different from that of healthy subjects

undergoing the same training. Heart rate reductions during submaximal

exercise were somewhat delayed or non-existent in the two patients with

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a hereditary neuropathy. However, the six

patients with myopathies had heart rate adaptations similar to those in

healthy subjects.

Thus, some patients with slowly-progressive or non-progressive

neuromuscular diseases can undergo exercise training and in many cases

demonstrate adaptations not different from those in healthy subjects.

Patients with different diseases, however, need not

respond uniformly, in terms of training adaptations or markers of muscle

damage. Therefore, each disease must be considered individually.