Cardiorespiratory Endurance and Work Efficiency of People with Cerebral Palsy Measured Using an Arm Ergometer

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The physical fitness of people with cerebral palsy (CP) was measured during continuous incremental exercises (ramp method) until exhaustion on an arm crank ergometer, and muscular efficiency was calculated. Subjects were eleven ADL-independent men with CP and nine male able-bodied control volunteers. Heart rate (HR, beats/min), minute ventilation (VE, liter/min), oxygen consumption (VO₂, ml/kg/min) and physical work capacity (PWC, watt) as cardiorespiratory endurance were measured continuously. After that, VO₂-100, VO₂max at age-predicted maximal HR, and anaerobic threshold (AT) were calculated based on the aforementioned data. We found that the cardiorespiratory endurance of CP subjects indicated in peak VO₂, VO₂-100, VO_2max, and AT were not significantly different from those of the able-bodied subjects, but peak PWC of CP subjects was significantly lower than that of the able-bodied subjects and work efficiency, which was about 50% of that of able-bodied subjects, was poor.