Building Strength Through Rehabilitation for Heart Failure Patients

In the U.S., 5.7 million people have heart failure (HF), 915,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, and both incidence and prevalence are increasing due to the aging of the population and to better survival from ischemic heart disease. A hallmark of HF, is poor functional status that, characteristically, deteriorates as the condition progresses, negatively affecting patients' quality of life. Poor functional status is associated with increased risk of hospitalization for exacerbations of HF and with increased mortality. Optimization of drug therapy and appropriate use of resynchronization therapy can improve functional status, as can patient engagement in exercise. Although exercise is recommended as a component of HF management, adherence is consistently low. This is particularly troubling because exercise has great potential as a low-risk, low-cost intervention to improve functional status and quality of life while decreasing HF symptoms and hospitalizations in patients with HF. Low adherence is due in part to inadequate strength and inability to tolerate or sustain even low levels of activity. In this study, we propose to use neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) to assist patient initiation of quadriceps strengthening in order to progressively increase low exercise tolerance. NMES has been shown to improve muscle strength, exercise capacity and quality of life, in samples less than 20 of male patients with HF. Larger sample studies are needed to demonstrate efficacy of this practice to jump start patients' abilities to benefit from formalized exercise program. The purpose of this double blinded, randomized, controlled, longitudinal study is to determine if NMES will increase muscle mass and strength, decrease sedentary time, and improve HF symptoms and exercise capacity, thus improving quality of life in patients with HF. It is hypothesized that with this increase in muscle mass, patients will improve overall exercise tolerance and capacity. In addition, after the intervention patients will be better able to tolerate an exercise program thus improving adherence to exercise recommendations. After 6 weeks of intervention, patients will be encouraged to participate in a formalized exercise program.