Objectives: To determine the effects of a 12-week, home-based resistance exercise program on strength, body composition, and activities of daily living (ADLs) in men and women with Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease and to design an ADL-based resistance exercise prescription template.
Design: Double-blind, placebo-controlled study.
Setting: Testing in a university setting; exercise in patients' homes.
Participants: Twenty CMT patients who volunteered.
Intervention: Subjects progressively strength trained at home 3 d/wk for 12 weeks.
Main outcome measures: Timed ADLs, isometric strength, and body composition.
Results: Absolute strength was greater in men with CMT in only 4 of 10 baseline measures (P<.05), but not when strength was normalized by lean mass. Training compliance was 87% with no gender differences. At baseline, women had 80% of normal strength in 4 of 10 measures, whereas men did not achieve 80% of normal strength in any measure. After training, women had 80% of normal strength in 8 of 10 measures, whereas men only had 80% of normal strength in 1. Training volumes and strength change scores showed no gender differences. ADLs improved after training with no gender differences (P<.05). An exercise prescription template was developed by using chair-rise time to estimate starting weights for lower body and supine rise for upper body.
Conclusions: Resistance training improved strength and ADLs equally in men and women. We designed an exercise prescription recommendation, based on ADL performance.