Literature Evaluation Form:
- What is the practical significance of these results? Describe how this knowledge might influence clinical practice. Are there any potentially harmful or beneficial uses of this knowledge?
- The study identified specific exercises that could be safely used in circuit training for hypertensive patients (leg curl, leg extension and bike 65% HR max)
- Exercises that increased blood pressure to dangerous level were also indentified. (isometric squat, leg press and bike 70-75% HR max)
- A circuit program based on the exercises deemed safe could be developed for people with hypertension.
- Do these results stimulate other scientific questions for you? What are they?
What makes some exercises safer than others with regard to increase in blood pressure?
3. If you wanted to continue with this work, what might be the next study?
- I would perform a detailed evaluation of various aerobic and anaerobic exercises to identify more “safe” exercises.
- I would develop a circuit program based on the exercises deemed safe on hypertensive patients’ and evaluate the efficacy in lowering the diastolic and systolic blood pressure values.
- What is the greatest weakness of this research?
- The study was performed on a sample of 10 subjects
- All participants were males, average age 52 years. The study failed to include women and younger male subjects.
- What is the greatest strength of this research?
- The study used subjects with normal blood pressure (control group) and with elevated blood pressure (study /treatment group) to compare the effects.
- 7 commonly used exercises were used to evaluate the effect on blood pressure level.
Statistical analysis was performed on the effect of exercise on hypertension.
6. What is the greatest significance of this work?
- There are ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’ exercises for people with hypertension.
- Circuit training based on the safe exercises can be useful for hypertensive patients’ as a non pharmacological strategy.
