The aim of this study was to assess the validity (Study 1) and reliability (Study 2) of a novel intermittent running test (Carminatti's test) for physiological assessment of soccer players. In Study 1, 28 players performed Carminatti's test, a repeated sprint ability test, and an intermittent treadmill test. In Study 2, 24 players performed Carminatti's test twice within 72 h to determine test-retest reliability. Carminatti's test required the participants to complete repeated bouts of 5 × 12 s shuttle running at progressively faster speeds until volitional exhaustion. The 12 s bouts were separated by 6 s recovery periods, making each stage 90 s in duration. The initial running distance was set at 15 m and was increased by 1 m at each stage (90 s). The repeated sprint ability test required the participants to perform 7 × 34.2 m maximal effort sprints separated by 25 s recovery. During the intermittent treadmill test, the initial velocity of 9.0 km · h(-1) was increased by 1.2 km · h(-1) every 3 min until volitional exhaustion. No significant difference (P > 0.05) was observed between Carminatti's test peak running velocity and speed at VO(2max) (v-VO(2max)). Peak running velocity in Carminatti's test was strongly correlated with v-VO(2max) (r = 0.74, P < 0.01), and highly associated with velocity at the onset of blood lactate accumulation (r = 0.63, P < 0.01). Mean sprint time was strongly associated with peak running velocity in Carminatti's test (r = -0.71, P < 0.01). The intraclass correlation was 0.94 with a coefficient of variation of 1.4%. In conclusion, Carminatti's test appears to be avalid and reliable measure of physical fitness and of the ability to perform intermittent high-intensity exercise in soccer players.

Introduction: Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is a serious public health problem and represents one of the leading causes of death in the world. In emergency situations the assessment of the victim and care must be effective, to reduce negative outcomes and to increase the survival rate. Objective: To analyze graduation students in the Health Sciences through objective testing on Basic Life Support (BLS). Methods: This is a descriptive, observational and cross sectional study, performed in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. The study population consisted of 664 graduation students in Medicine, Nursing, Physiotherapy, Pharmacy, Nutrition and Occupational Therapy. Data collection occurred through an instrument in the form of objective tests based on the guidelines for Basic Life Support from the American Heart Association. For analysis the Shapiro-Wilk, Chi-square, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used. The adopted confidence level was 95%. The statistical program used was Stata 11.0. Result: There was found to be a prevalence of students who were female (82.23%), single (77.56%), on the physiotherapy course (53.16%), in the freshmen year (32.2%) with previous training (54.45%) and with a median age of 22 years old. When the association between the scores was analyzed according to sex, marital status, previous training, course and year of study, the relation between the number of correct answers and previous training, course and year of study showed statistically significant differences (p < 0.001). Conclusion: 99.9% of subjects had lower score than the minimum score of 84% of Americam Heart Association, which characterizes insufficient knowledge about the basic support of life theme. Thus, there is need for continued training of health sciences students on the subject, at the undergraduate level.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a genetic recessive disorder with progressive muscle weakness. Despite the general muscle wasting, degeneration and necrosis of cardiomyocytes have been the main causes of morbidity and death in individuals with DMD. Cardiac failure is generally preceded by disturbances in heart rate variability (HRV), and non-invasive measurement of the autonomic nervous system has been an important tool to predict adverse cardiovascular events. Hence, the application of HRV to study autonomic modulation in DMD individuals, and the establishment of correlations between HRV and heart/lung diseases, age, and mortality will have the potential to improve quality of life and life expectancy of individuals with DMD. In order to evaluate the state of the art in this field, we conducted a systematic search in Medline/PubMed and BVS (virtual library in health) databases. We selected 8 studies using pre-defined criteria and meta-analysis revealed decreased parasympathetic activity and increased sympathetic predominance in individuals with DMD as major observations. Moreover, there is a strong association between diminished HRV and myocardial fibrosis with DMD. These patterns are evident in patients at early-stage DMD and become more prominent as disease severity and age increase. Thus, data minning clearly indicates that HRV assessment can be used as a predictor for sudden death in individuals with DMD. The use of the HRV, which is inexpensive, ubiquitously available in clinics and hospitals, and a non-invasive analysis tool, can save lives and decrease the morbity in DMD by alerting care givers to consider autonomic nervous system intervention.

BackgroundThe literature indicates that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects cardiac autonomic control. In this study, we conducted a literature review in order to investigate the heart rate variability (HRV) in COPD subjects.MethodsA search was performed in Medline database, using the link between the keywords: “autonomic nervous system”, “cardiovascular system”, “COPD” and “heart rate variability”.ResultsThe search resulted in a total of 40 references. Amongst these references, the first exclusion resulted in the barring of 29 titles and abstracts, which were not clearly related to the purpose of review. This resulted in a total of 11 articles that were then read and utilized in the review. The selected studies indicated that there is significant reduction of HRV in patients with COPD, characterized by reduction of indices that assess parasympathetic activity in addition to dealing with the global autonomic modulation. We also established that supervised exercise can reduce these harmful effects in COPD patients. Also, it was reported that the use of non-invasive ventilation in these patients may contribute to the improvement of respiratory symptoms, with no impairing, and may even induce positive responses in cardiac autonomic regulation.ConclusionThe studies indicate a need for further investigations to guide future therapies to improve the treatment of cardiovascular system in the respiratory diseases.

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