Blood pressure measurement during aerobic exercise: subsidies for cardiac rehabilitation.
BACKGROUND
Institutional documents recommend that hemodynamic variables--heart rate (HR) and systolic (SAP) and diastolic arterial pressure (DAP)--be routinely controlled at the aerobic part of supervised exercise sessions for coronary disease patients.


OBJECTIVE
a) to determine the pattern and reproducibility of the blood pressure (BP) throughout 15 minutes of physical exercise at constant and moderate intensity; and b) to compare the BP measurement obtained with digital and conventional device during the exercise.


METHODS
Thirty adult individuals of both sexes (65+/-11 yrs) were assessed for 15 minutes during lower-limb cycle ergometry and the BP was measured every 2 minutes, between the 3rd and the 13th minutes, using a Tango digital sphygmomanometer (Suntech, USA) and in the 14th minute, using a mercury column sphygmomanometer. Seven days later, at similar time of the day, six individuals had the test repeated to evaluate reproducibility.


RESULTS
Whereas the DAP did not vary throughout the exercise (p > 0.05), SAP increased from the 3rd to 7th minute (146+/-4.1 versus 158+/-4.5 mmHg, p<0.05) and thereafter remained practically constant. The digital and conventional measurements showed a strong correlation - r = 0.83 for SAP and 0.84 for DAP - with no differences for SAP (163+/-4.5 versus 162+/-4.3 mmHg; p >0.05) and a small difference for DAP (72+/-2.4 versus 78+/-2.3 mmHg; p<0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
For exercises of moderate and constant intensity in a cycle ergometer with a 15-minute duration, BP measurements must be carried out from the 7th minute on. The digital measurements with the Tango equipment and those obtained with the conventional mercury-column sphygmomanometer were, for clinical purposes, very similar and reproducible.
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação Física, Universidade Gama Filho, Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Brazil.
Emanuel Couto
EC
Furtado
Plínio dos Santos
Pdos S
Ramos
Claudio Gil Soares de
CG
Araújo
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology*; D015924:Blood Pressure Monitors; D000072038:Cardiac Rehabilitation; D003971:Diastole; D015444:Exercise / Q000502:physiology*; D005080:Exercise Test / Q000379:methods*; D005081:Exercise Therapy / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013599:Systole; D013997:Time Factors