Efficacy of resistance exercise during hemodialysis on improving lower limb muscle strength in patients with chronic kidney disease: a meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) on hemodialysis (HD) have muscle weakness in addition to a high risk of falls, motor impairment and immobilization

Objective

To conduct a systematic review with meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials regarding the effectiveness of resistance exercises on muscle strengthening and lower limb endurance in patients with CKD on HD.

Methodology

The study was conducted in the PubMed, EMBASE, SciELO, LILACS and Cochrane databases, without linguistic restrictions or year of publication.

Results

Of the 824 studies found, only 6 were included for analysis. Studies were allocated to some concern or high risk of bias regarding the reporting of outcomes. The low quality of outcome evidence can mainly be observed due to the severe level of inconsistency owing to the high degree of heterogeneity. A significant reduction in heterogeneity was observed after the sensitivity analysis, demonstrating an improvement in the muscle strength of the lower limbs (p = .002).

Conclusion

It is concluded that most studies demonstrate benefits in carrying out resistance training programs in increasing muscle strength of the lower limbs, however, it is necessary that randomized clinical trials (RCTs) with greater methodological rigor are performed to confirm these findings.

KEYWORDS:

• Resistance exercise
• hemodialysis
• intradialytic
• renal insufficiency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação de Amparo à Ciência e Tecnologia do Estado de Pernambuco [0.182-4.08/20].