Endothelial function is known to be impaired in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) and impaired endothelial function has been reported to be associated with an increased mortality risk in those subjects. Although systemic exercise training has been demonstrated to improve endothelial dysfunction in patients with CHF, elderly patients with severely impaired exercise capacity could not engaged in usual exercise training using ordinal ergometer. Those patients are able to join stretching or very light resistance training. On the other hand, passive pedaling using strength ergometer has been reported to be useful in patients with severely impaired exercise capacity, but the safety and the efficacy of passive pedaling on endothelial function in old patients with CHF has not been previously reported.
The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of passive exercise on systemic endothelial function in elderly patients with chronic heart failure.