Handgrip strength and its association with physiological variables and fat free mass index among cardiac patients / Siti Nur Baait Mohd Sokran

Cardiac disease patients showed alterations in muscle strength, body composition and coronary function. This study focused on exploring the relationship between handgrip strength, Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), body composition and myocardial oxygen consumption (MVO2) index among cardiac disease patients.This is a cross-sectional study involving 77 subjects and it was carried out in two phases among cardiac patients with surgical and conservative management. Subjects were recruited based on selection criteria as set by the study protocol. In the preliminary study, 27 patients who underwent cardiac surgery were subjected to handgrip strength and MVO2 index pre and post surgery. Spearman-rank correlation, simple linear regression analysis and MANOVA were used to analyse the study results. In the main study, 50 cardiac patients recruited and handgrip strength measurement was conducted using Jamar hand dynamometer followed by measurement of body composition using hand-held BIA. Then, the subjects were assessed for MVO2 index. The preliminary study results showed that there were significant interactions (p < .001) for both handgrip strength with large effect sizes (dominant handgrip x MVO2 index: t|p 2 = .44; nondominant handgrip x RPP: rip2 = .49) with MVO2 index pre and post-surgery. This signifies that handgrip strength had effects on MVO2 index pre and post-surgery. The main study outcome showed relationship between bilateral handgrip strength with LVEF and MVO2 index among cardiac patients. FFMI showed a negative relationship with dominant handgrip strength among male subjects (p=-.0004, p>.005). Simple linear regression analysis demonstrated an interaction between non-dominant handgrip strength and LVEF (R2=.081, p <0.05) with small effect size, both handgrip strength and MVO2 index (R2=.334, p<.001) with small effect size. The study findings show that there is an interaction found between handgrip strength and MVO2 index pre and post-surgery among cardiac surgical patients. There is an association found between handgrip strength with MVO2 index and LVEF among cardiac patients. However, no relationship was found between handgrip strength and body composition. Hence, it might be inferred that handgrip strength could be used as a predictor to assess MVO2 index among cardiac subjects.