Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Feb 22, 2021
Date Accepted: Jun 25, 2021
Smartphone assisted high-intensity interval training in inflammatory rheumatic disease patients: A randomized trial - treatment by man or machine?
ABSTRACT
Background:
High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is documented to counteract the reduced maximal oxygen uptake (V̇O2max) and poor cardiovascular health associated with inflammatory rheumatic disease (IRD). However, supervised HIIT is resource demanding.
Objective:
This study sought to investigate if guidance by a smartphone application (APP: Myworkout GO) could yield similar HIIT-induced effects as supervision by healthcare professionals.
Methods:
Forty patients (33 females, 48±12 years; 7 males, 52±11 years), diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthritis or systemic lupus erythematosus were randomized to a supervised group (SG) or an APP group (AG). Both groups were instructed to perform 4x4 minute intervals with an intensity corresponding to 85-95% of HRmax twice a week for 10 weeks. Treadmill V̇O2max and health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL), measured using RAND-36, were assessed before and after the exercise period.
Results:
V̇O2max increased (P<.001) in both groups, revealing 3.6±1.3 (SG) and 3.7±1.5 mL·kg-1·min-1 (AG) improvements, with no between-group differences apparent. Improvements in the following HRQoL dimensions; bodily pain, vitality, social functioning and emotional wellbeing were observed for both groups (all P <.001–.05). Again, with no between-group differences detected.
Conclusions:
High-intensity 4x4 minute interval training increased V̇O2max and HRQoL, contributing to the patients´ reduced cardiovascular disease risk, improved health, performance, and enhanced quality of life. Similar improvements were observed if IRD patients were guided by healthcare professionals or an APP, suggesting that utilization of the APP may be excellent in reducing the costs of HIIT as a treatment strategy in this patient population. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04649528.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.