Exercise Therapy in Patients With Peripheral Artery Disease: Evaluating the Clinical Effectiveness of Exercise Therapy and Exploring Determinants of Improvement

Exercise Therapy in Patients With Peripheral Artery Disease: Evaluating the Clinical Effectiveness of Exercise Therapy and Exploring Determinants of Improvement

I. To investigate whether patient characteristics, exercise therapy characteristics, local metabolic exercise response, endothelial function, autonomic function or atherosclerotic lesion location can predict the walking response to a successfully completed semi-supervised exercise intervention in patients with intermittent claudication (WP I) II. To assess the effect of a home-based exercise intervention with remote monitoring and coaching on cardiovascular risk factors in patients with intermittent claudication (WP II)

The study population will comprise patients diagnosed with lower-extremity artery disease (ABI ≤0.9 and/or 20% decrease after a maximal treadmill test) suffering from intermittent claudication (Rutherford 1-3) presenting with new complaints (at least 6 months after previous revascularization) at the Vascular Center of university hospitals Leuven will be included if according to current guidelines their initial treatment should be conservative

Inclusion Criteria:

• age > 17 yrs
• ABI ≤0.9 and/or 20% decrease after a maximal treadmill test
• intermittent claudication (Rutherford 1-3)
• ability to undertake an exercise test and read and understand Dutch questionnaires

Exclusion criteria

• exercise test induced signs of complex arrhythmias or significant ischemia during baseline testing
• other comorbidity limiting participation in the exercise group