RELATIONSHIP OF PREHENSILE MANUAL FORCE WITH SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC AND ANTHROPOMETRIC VARIABLES IN PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC HEART FAILURE

Abstract

 Introduction: the evaluation of prehensile manual strength is considered a tool for assessing physical performance and is a predictor of cardiovascular disease. The aim of this research was to establish the relationship bet-ween Prehensile Manual Strength (PMF), sociodemographic and anthropometric variables in patients with Chronic Heart Failure (CHF) in a cardiac rehabilitation program in a fourth level clinic in the city of Cali, Colombia. Mate-rial and method: descriptive cross-sectional study which included 33 patients with CHF selected at convenience, aged between 40 and 90 years. The assessment of prehensile manual strength was evaluated by dynamometry and its result was correlated with sociodemographic and anthropometric variables and Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction (LVEF) levels in all patients. Results: there was a positive correlation between non-dominant hand dynamometry and LVEF (p = 0.015) as well as with weight (p ≤ 0.001), height (p = 0.005) and BMI (p = 0.003). Patients were mostly male (72.3 %) with age 64.9 ± 10.5, LVEF 43.2 ± 14.3 and MPF values of 32.4 kg ± 12.5 in the dominant hand and a median of 33.9 kg (RIQ: 25.7-36.1) in the non-dominant hand. Conclusions: the results of this study seem to indicate that there is a correlation between the PMF and the sociodemographic and anthropometric variables in the patients with CHF investigated.