PURPOSE: Reviewing systematically the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that evaluated aerobic exercisealone versus usual care in exercise tolerance, functional capacity, and quality of life (QoL) in patients with pre-dialysis. METHODS: Searches in the Medline, Cochrane CENTRAL, Embase, PEDro, and LILACS databases until February 2021 included RCTs that evaluated the effects of aerobic exercise on peak VO2, functional capacity, lower limb muscle strength, and QoL. The random effect meta-analysis model was used andreported as mean difference (MD) and 95% confidence interval (CI), risk of bias through RoB2.0 and the quality of evidence by GRADE. RESULTS: 10 RCTs, with 365 patients. Aerobic exercise increased 2.07 ml/kg/min (95% CI 1.16 to 2.98; I2 = 24%, QoE moderate) at peak VO2; 77.78m (95% CI 33.27 to 122.30; I2 = 44.5%, QoE moderate) in the 6MWT and 7.65 repetitions (95% CI 5.73 to 9.58; I2 = 0%; QoE moderate) in STS-30 versus usual care. In QoL, studies reported improvements in the questionnaire scores. CONCLUSION: Aerobic exercise increases VO2 peak, functional capacity and lower limb muscle strength in patients with pre-dialysis. Effects on QoL appear to be beneficial.

Full text (sometimes free) may be available at these link(s):      help

• DOI
• PubMed
• PDF locator
• publisher