Evolution Of Exercise-related Dyspnea in Response To Anxiety-provoking Or Relaxing Situations In Healthy Subjects

Abstract Body: Exertional dyspnea,characterized as a symptom of discomfort or difficulty in breathing, is a common complaint in healthy individuals and in many pathologies. Previous studies have shown that emotions including anxiety and stress influenced the perceived unpleasantness of dyspnea. PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of relaxing and anxiety-provoking situations on exercise-related dyspnea, heart and respiratory rates, blood pressure, mood state, anxiety and depression in healthy subjects. METHODS: Twenty-two healthy adults were included in this randomized cross-over study. Each participant performed three submaximal cycling exercise for 30 minutes on three separate days in a randomized order: a neutral condition (NC) with no particular effect, a relaxing condition (RC) where each subject listened to relaxing music and an anxiety-provoking condition (APC) where a horror movie was broadcast. Heart and respiratory rates, blood pressure,dyspnea using the Multidimensional Dyspnea Profile (MDP) and modified Borg scales, mood state using the Profile of Mood States (POMS), anxiety and depression using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADS) were evaluated before and 5 minutes after each intervention. In addition, heart and dyspnea rates were measured throughout the intervention. RESULTS: Dyspnea and heart rates increased more with APC than NC (1.68±0.15 vs 1.32±0.12 RPE, p<0.01 and 138±2 vs 119±1 bpm, p<0.001). In addition, submaximal exercise with APC showed a higher increase than NC in the subscales “breathing discomfort” (2.50±0.18 vs 1.86±0.11, p=0.02) and “emotional response domain” (6.82±1.55 vs 0.95±0.34, p<0.001) of MDP, global POMS score (11.73±3.58 vs -4.64±2.3, p<0.001) and HADS-Anxiety subscale (8.59±1.27 vs 3.27±0.61, p<0.001) and the dyspnea rates (0.64±0.12 vs 0.14±0.07 RPE, p<0.001). No significant difference were observed between NC and RC. CONCLUSION: Exercise-related dyspnea and anxiety increased with APC in healthy subjects. In contrast, results did not show difference in any parameters with RC. Many activities and daily life situations can lead the patient with a chronic disease to experience dyspnea. Future studies should investigate strategies to reduce dyspnea in chronic diseases and in fine, improve quality of life of these patients