Qualitative Description of the Exertional Symptoms of Participants with Persistent Symptoms of Lyme Disease during a Low Intensity Resistance Training Intervention

Abstract

Introduction: Greater emphasis needs to be placed on approaches to improve the health-related quality of life of patients with persistent symptoms of Lyme disease (PSLD), but little information exists to inform an exercise professional’s expectations of their supervision of resistance training (RT) programs with PSLD patients. In order to build this knowledge base, a secondary qualitative analysis was performed to explore the RT exertional symptoms of PSLD patients that participated in a 4-week study investigating the feasibility of an RT intervention. Methods: Comments regarding exertional symptoms that were recorded in a daily exercise log were the main source of data for this secondary analysis. A manifest content analysis was performed in order to identify recurrent themes of exertional symptoms experienced by this sample of PSLD patients during RT. Results: The reported findings revealed that strain, discomfort, crepitus, tightness, shaking, and control loss were the major themes of exertional symptoms recorded during the RT intervention. Conclusions: These results provide insights intended to inform the expectations of supervisors of exercise (personal trainers, physical therapists, exercise researchers, etc.) when directing RT programming with patients with PSLD.