BFRT for Severe Lower Extremity Muscle Atrophy

Cincinnati Sportsmedicine Research and Education Foundation

Status: Completed

Conditions: Severe Muscle Atrophy; Muscle Weakness

Treatments: Other: Blood flow restriction training

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04357184

BFRT17-37

Details and patient eligibility

About

Muscle weakness or atrophy is a common condition following acute and chronic musculoskeletal injuries. Strength training is an imperative component in clinical rehabilitation of musculoskeletal injuries. Heavy exercise loads (approximately 70% of one repetition maximum) is necessary to elicit muscle hypertrophy and strength gains. However, patients with severe muscle atrophy are frequently unable to tolerate these loads due to pain. Blood flow resistance training with low resistance loads may be used to safely develop muscle strength.

Full description

Blood flow restriction training (BFRT) is a safe type of low intensity resistance exercise that has demonstrated enhanced muscle growth, muscle strength, oxygen delivery and utilization (VO2Max). With BFRT, lighter loads can be used to build muscle while sparing the joints from heavy loading and without overly fatiguing the central nervous system.

The objectives of BFRT are 1) to increase the effectiveness of physical therapy, 2) safely increase muscle mass, reduce arterial stiffness, increase bone density, increase Vo2Max, improve carotid arterial compliance and enhance response of the autonomic nervous system, 3) improve muscle endurance in 1/3 the time, improve strength and hypertrophy after surgery, improve muscle recruitment and increase anabolic growth signaling.

Enrollment: 100 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients with > 20% deficit in isometric quadriceps and/or hamstrings strength
• Patients willing to complete at least 9 BFRT training sessions
• Patients willing to provide informed consent (or parental consent)

Exclusion criteria

• Pregnancy
• History of varicose veins
• History of blood clots or active blood clot
• Taking oral contraceptives
• History of heart attack
• Unstable cardiac disease
• Taking heart failure medication
• Uncontrolled hypertension (> 140/90)
• Uncontrolled tachycardia (> 100 bpm)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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100 participants in 1 patient group

BFRT with 4 exercises and low resistance loads

Experimental group

Description:

Blood flow resistance training will be performed with a standard blood pressure cuff that is placed and inflated by a clinician. The patient will perform 4 exercises with low resistance loads that will produce a muscle burn to enhance promotion of strength. Training will be supervised in the clinic. The cuff is deflated between exercises.

Treatment:

Other: Blood flow restriction training