Contribution of the Autonomic Nervous System to Recovery in Firefighters.

AUTONOMIC nervous system physiology; ANALYSIS of covariance; CARDIAC arrest; CONFIDENCE intervals; HEART beat; HEART rate monitoring; STATISTICS; DATA analysis; COOLDOWN; REPEATED measures design; CROSS-sectional method; EXERCISE intensity; DATA analysis software; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; FRIEDMAN test (Statistics); DISEASE risk factors

Context: Sudden cardiac deaths (SCDs) have accounted for nearly half of the line-of-duty deaths among US firefighters over the past 10 years. In 2018, 33% of all SCDs occurred after the end of a fire service call. Researchers have suggested that an imbalance in autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulation of heart rate postcall may interfere with recovery in firefighters. Objective: To use heart-rate recovery (HRR) and heart-rate variability (HRV), 2 noninvasive markers of ANS function, to examine the ANS recovery profiles of firefighters. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Firehouse and research laboratory. Patients or Other Participants: Thirty-seven male career active-duty firefighters (age = 39 ± 9 years, height = 178.8 ± 5.4 cm, mass = 87.9 ± 11.2 kg). Main Outcome Measure(s): Percentage of maximal HR (%MHR) and HRV (natural log of the square root of the mean sum of the squared differences [InRMSSD]) were collected after both submaximal and maximal exercise protocols during a 10- minute seated recovery. The HRR profiles were examined by calculating the asymptote, amplitude, and decay parameters of the monoexponential HRR curve for each participant. Results: Differences in HRR parameters after 10 minutes of seated recovery were identified after submaximal versus maximal exercise (P < .001). In addition, although ANS was more suppressed after maximal exercise, HRV indicated incomplete recovery, and regardless of the test, recovery %MHR and InRMSSD values did not return to pretest %MHR and InRMSSD values. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the ANS contributions to recovery in active-duty firefighters are exercise-intensity specific, and this is likely an important factor when establishing best-practice recovery guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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