Home walking program may help clogged leg arteries

Researchers say the home-based program may be more effective at keeping people motivated than hospital-based exercise for a common and disabling problem, and may be a more cost-effective first-line treatment. “I was somewhat surprised that we achieved our results of a continued difference between the intervention and control groups because it is very difficult to get patients to adhere to an exercise program long term even when it is supervised, and our program was unsupervised, ” said Dr. Mary McDermott, who led the research. According to the National Institutes of Health, eight to 12 million people or one in every 20 Americans over the age of 50 has peripheral artery disease, or PAD, a condition caused by plaque build-up in arteries, especially in the legs. McDermott, a physician and professor at Northwestern University in Chicago told Reuters Health, “Symptoms of peripheral artery disease are often not classic.



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