MIRA Trainee Talks: Sydney Valentino

Published: October 30, 2018 | By Emily Dunford

Sydney Valentino, a MSc student in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster and recipient of the first Labarge Mobility Scholarship (supervisor Dr. Maureen MacDonald), delivered a talk on her work entitled:

Left ventricular function and stair climbing-based high-intensity interval training in a cardiac rehabilitation population: a proposal

• The most powerful part of the heart, the left ventricle, twists with each heart beat to send blood out to the rest of the body – just like wringing out a cloth, this is called left ventricular twist

• After a heart attack, there is a decreased ability of the heart to pump blood out which can be measured by left ventricular twist using ultrasound

• To combat this, cardiac rehabilitation exercise can reverse negative changes in heart structure by 30% as well as decreasing the chance of reoccurrence and mortality

• As an alternative to regular cardiac rehab exercise, we are using stair climbing as a modality for high intensity interval training, which is a time-efficient exercise requiring just a 12-step staircase

• If stair climbing and left ventricular twist are as effective as the current exercise and measures used, we see them as additional tools to use in adults going through a cardiac rehabilitation program.

This article was first published by the MIRA Trainee Network. Read the ​original article.​