Six-minute walk test Essays -- Health, Exercise

Six-minute walk test There are many tools to assess functional exercise capacity most of which provide good information about body system. The most popular clinical exercise tests are stair climbing, a 6MWT, a shuttle-walk test, detection of exercise-induced asthma, a cardiac stress test and a cardiopulmonary exercise test) (ATS, 2002). In the past, the functional exercise capacity was assessed by asking patients â€Å"How many flights of stairs can you climb or how many blocks can you walk?†; but, this assessment was a subjective measurement. In addition, the first objective tool was in 1960s which was 12 minute walking test; however, it was so exhausting for patients. As a result from that, a 6 minute walking test (6MWT) was found to be used as an objective measurement tool for functional exercise capacity in patients with mild or moderate respiratory diseases and cardiac diseases (ATS, 2002). Many studies have concluded that 6MWT is inexpensive test andâ€Å"†¦ it is easy to administe r, better tolerated, and more reflective of activities of daily living than the other walk tests† (ATS, 2002). Therefore, this essay will describe the 6MWT and comment on administration, application, reliability and validity based on the literature reviews. Chang (2006) mentioned that 6MWT measures the distance that patients can walk on a flat surface as fast as they can with stops needed by patients within 6 minute. In addition, 6 MWT can reflect the exercise level needed for daily tasks. Morales-Blanhir, Vidal, Romero, Castro, Villegas, Zamboni (2010) showed that the major indications for 6MWT are to measure the response to the intervention given to the patients and it can be used for measuring the functional status of patients, as well as a predic... ...patients with Left Ventricular Dysfunction were involved in the study. 6MWT was one of the assessment tools and the authors have done the 6MWT in the beginning then they repeat it after 242 days. The authors have compared patients with high 6MWD with patients with lower 6MWD. As a result, they concluded that patients with lower 6MWD had a significantly greater chance of dying (Morales-Blanhir et al, 2010). The 6MWT is the best indicator of existing types of walk tests of functional capacity for children and it can be used to evaluate cardiopulmonary disease. In 2005 a group of authors have examined 74 patients with a mean age of 14.2  ± 1.2 years, and they concluded that 6MWT can be used to evaluate and assess pediatric patients with cardiac and lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis or bronchiolitis obliterans (Morales-Blanhir et al, 2010). .