Assessment of Functional Capacity in Clinical and Research Applications

A fundamental requirement for many of the activities of daily living is the ability to perform predominantly aerobic, ie, oxygen-using, work.Such activities require the integrated efforts of the heart, lungs, and circulation to deliver oxygen to the metabolically active muscle mass.Thus, the assessment of functional or aerobic exercise time or peak oxygen consumption provides important diagnostic and prognostic information in a wide variety of clinical settings.Furthermore, numerous clinical trials, especially those in patients with heart failure, have used aerobic exercise time or peak oxygen consumption as a primary or secondary end point.This brief advisory will highlight the major clinical and research applications of functional capacity assessment.For a comprehensive review of exercise testing, the reader is referred to the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Guidelines for Exercise Testing.