Cardiac & Police Project

Cardiac Rehabilitation 

Research in the Sport & Exercise Science department, conducted by Dr Chelsea Batty, focuses on the area of cardiac rehabilitation. Cardiac rehabilitation is an evidenced based treatment aimed at rehabilitating those who are suffering from cardiovascular disease. Patients who are referred to cardiac rehabilitation are prescribed to complete supervised exercise sessions where they are required to exercise for at least 20 minutes at 40-70% of their heart rate reserve. Dr Batty’s research, including her doctoral research project, has explored patient adherence to cardiac rehabilitation programmes. Patient attendance to rehabilitation programmes has largely been impacted by funding issues and lack of resources.

Dr Batty’s current research is examining whether providing cardiac rehabilitation patients with digital videos before starting their rehabilitation programme will provide useful to patients by giving them knowledge on how to exercise correctly, safely and for the right amount of time and at the right intensity not only during supervised exercise sessions but during their habitual time. The project is also exploring if the digital videos make patients feel more comfortable with exercise and improve confidence that they can meet the prescribed exercise targets from the outset, given that suffering from a cardiac event can place unwanted stress and anxiety on patients.

Police Project

The department is currently undertaking research in collaboration with the policing department at Wrexham University. The current project is examining the reliability of the multistage fitness stage at a determinant of policing students/recruits physical fitness.

The multistage fitness test (beep test) has been used widely as means for physical fitness assessment of police officers for decades. In the UK, prospective special constabulary officers must have a multi-stage fitness test score of greater than 5.4 and have a BMI of 18-25kg/m2.

The project is comparing the scores of the policing students to the results from a maximal oxygen consumption (VO2 Max) test, the gold standard test for aerobic fitness.  An additional project aims to investigate the perceived importance of physical fitness in the role of a police officer and how policing students perceptions impact upon recruits completing the multistage fitness test.