Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) rehabilitation is an outpatient service for patients diagnosed with peripheral artery disease—a disorder of the vessels of the legs or arms resulting in pain. Rehabilitation consists of a series of sessions involving physical exercise, using a motorized treadmill and various other pieces of exercise equipment to permit each patient to achieve symptom-limited claudication. Claudication is taken from the Latin word ‘to limp’ and refers to the pain that occurs in PAD patients when they exercise. A medically supervised walking program can improve the symptoms of claudication and lead to an enhanced quality of life.
Each rehabilitation session lasts about 45 to 60 minutes and is supervised by an exercise physiologist or nurse. A patient's claudication threshold and other cardiovascular limitations are monitored and adjustments are made to the workload during the exercises.
PAD rehabilitation requires a physician’s referral. The referring physician receives progress notes about his or her patient’s progress in the program.
Important: Patients with Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) may experience the following symptoms in one or both legs:
- Hair Loss Over Toes and Feet
- Thick Toenails
- Shiny, Thigh Skin
- Painful Ulcers
- Withered Calf Muscles
