Walking exercise combined with neuromuscular electrical stimulation of antagonist resistance improved muscle strength and physical function for elderly people: A pilot study

Abstract

A hybrid training system (HTS) was developed as a way to combine the application of electrical stimulation and voluntary contraction. Moreover we developed a novel training method using HTS during walking (HTSW). This study was designed to evaluate the effect of HTSW on muscle strength, physical function, and knee pain in knee osteoarthritis (KOA). 11 subjects (age: 74.0 ± 8.5 years) participated, and performed HTSW for 30 minutes three times a week for 12 weeks. Isokinetic knee extension/flexion torque (KET/KFT), muscle volume (MV), one-leg standing test (OST), functional reach test, 10-meter maximum gait speed , Timed up & go test , 6-minute walking test , Knee pain using Visual Analog Scale (VAS) and Japan Knee Osteoarthritis Measure (JKOM) were assessed. KET significantly increased from 1.02 ±0.29 Nm/kg pre-training to 1.23 ± 0.33 Nm/kg post- training (P < 0.01, ES = 0.68). KFT significantly increased from 0.65 ± 0.18 Nm/kg pre-training to 0.78 ± 0.17 Nm/kg post-training (p < 0.01). MV significantly increased from 9.00 ± 2.84 mm pre-training to 10.37 ± 3.16 mm at the end of training (p < 0.05). All the physical function except OST was significantly improved. The score of JKOM improved from 26.7 ± 18.30 pre-training to 17.2 ± 14.02 at the end of training (p < 0.01). VAS significantly decreased from 35.4 ± 22.59 pre-training to 16.5 ± 19.73 at the end of training (p < 0.05). HTSW may be an effective training method for the treatment of people with KOA.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND), which permits downloading and sharing the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially.