Effect of Ankle Splinting on Vascular Function in Aging

Not Applicable

Completed

Brief Summary: Endothelial function of the skeletal muscle vasculature declines with advancing age. Although aerobic exercise training is commonly prescribed to combat loss of endothelial function in the elderly, the rate of compliance to training programs is low. Contrary to aerobic exercise training, stretching exercise is widely performed in elderly patients to increase muscle flexibility and to prevent muscle atrophy induced by immobilization. However, it remains unknown as to whether regular stretching of the calf muscles using ankle dorsiflexion splinting improves muscle blood flow. The purpose of the proposed work is to test the hypothesis that performance of ankle dorsiflexion splinting improves endothelial function and lower leg muscle blood flow in older adults. Ankle dorsiflexion splinting will be performed on the randomized leg for 30 minutes, 5 times per week for 4 weeks. Leg vascular measures will be performed on the splinted and non-splinted legs prior to and at the end of the 4-week intervention.

Detailed Description: Older adults will be recruited in this study. Vascular function will be assessed before and after the 4-week ankle splinting intervention. To examine the acute effects of splinting, vascular measures will also be obtained before and immediately following 30 min of ankle splinting. All procedures will be performed at the Integrative Cardiovascular Physiology Laboratory at the University of Florida.

Participants will have one leg randomly assigned to using a splint to stretch the calf muscles 30 min per day, 5 days per week for 4 weeks, while the contralateral non-splinted leg will serve as an internal control.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria

Exclusion Criteria

No evidence of heart disease evidenced by abnormal resting ECG, angina or ECG evidence of acute myocardial ischemia during the exercise test, no history of any relevant acute cardiac event (myocardial infarction, episode of heart failure)
No history of deep vein thrombosis.
No history of Type I or II diabetes mellitus.
No history for renal or liver disease.
No history of seizures, or other relevant on-going or recurrent illness.

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Ankle splinting	Ankle splinting	Older adults will have one leg randomly assigned to ankle splinting for 4 weeks. The non-splinted leg will serve as the control.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in vascular endothelial function of leg conduit artery	At baseline and after 4 weeks of ankle splinting	Endothelium-dependent and endothelium-independent dilation of popliteal artery using ultrasonography.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in vascular endothelial function of calf resistance vessels	At baseline and after 4 weeks of ankle splinting	Vascular endothelial function of calf resistance vessels using venous occlusion plethysmography.
Change in calf blood flow in response to acute ankle splinting	Before and after 30 min of ankle splinting	Calf blood flow using ultrasonography and venous occlusion plethysmography before and after acute splinting.

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