title: Is a practice incremental shuttle walk test really necessary?
abstract: The incremental and endurance shuttle walking tests (ISWT and ESWT) are measures of exercise tolerance commonly used in pulmonary rehabilitation (PR). A practice ISWT is advocated but often omitted by PR centres. We aimed to investigate the effect of such an omission within a clinical PR service. Between October 2002 and October 2008, 392 patients attending PR completed a practice ISWT and an ISWT. Results showed that patients walked significantly further on ISWT compared to practice ISWT (p ≤ 0.001). A significant difference in ESWT level was found between those calculated from practice ISWT and those calculated from ISWT (p ≤ .001). Despite a visual trend towards a negative relationship between distance walked at baseline (practice ISWT) and magnitude of the difference between the two walks, this did not meet statistical significance (p = 0.409). Absence of a practice ISWT could lead to possible clinical misjudgements.
authors.affiliation: The Respiratory Care Team, Surrey Community Health North West Locality, Chertsey, UK. fran.dyer@nhs.net
authors.forename: Fran
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dyer
authors.forename: Pamela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Marriner
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Cheema
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bott
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005080:Exercise Test / Q000379:methods*; D017079:Exercise Tolerance / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008171:Lung Diseases / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010102:Oxygen Inhalation Therapy; D016138:Walking