Abstract

Background: Despite exercise being included in the recommended advice for patients with venous leg ulcers, there is a fear shared by clinicians and patients that exercise may be either inappropriate or harmful and actually delay rather than promote healing. Therefore, before embarking in a large trial exploring the effect of supervised exercise on healing outcomes, it is important to assess exercise safety as well as fidelity and progression in a feasibility study.
Objective: We aimed to evaluate the fidelity and exercise progression of a supervised exercise programme in patients with venous ulcers being treated with compression therapy.
Design: We analysed the data collected during the exercise sessions of patients with venous leg ulcers allocated to the exercise group of a randomised controlled trial exploring the feasibility of using exercise as an adjunct therapy to compression therapy.
Methods: Eighteen participants randomised in the exercise group were asked to undertake 36 (3 times/week for 12 weeks), 60-minute exercise sessions, each comprising moderate-intensity aerobic, resistance and flexibility exercise components.
Results: The overall session attendance rate was 79%, with 13/18 participants completing all 36 sessions. No in-session adverse events were reported. 100% aerobic components and 91% of resistance components were completed within the desired moderate-intensity target (Borg exertion rating of 12-14 on the 6-20 scale). Similarly, 81% of aerobic components and 93% of flexibility components were completed within the prescribed duration targets. The number of minutes spent on aerobic exercise increased through the 12-week period (e.g., baseline: 19 min (8) vs 29 min (3) at end-point).

Limitations: With this being a feasibility study, exercise results should be treated as indicative.
Conclusions: Our data showed that patients with venous ulcers could safely follow a supervised exercise programme incorporating moderate-intensity aerobic, resistance and flexibility components.