An interactive, menu driven program, suitable for students of
biology at high school and undergraduate level. This program simulates
some of the important physiological measurements which can be made
to assess cardio-respiratory performance or "fitness"
in the laboratory. The program presents results, in a form comparable
to a chart recorder (in high resolution graphics), from healthy
individuals performing a fixed schedule of graded exercise on a
bicycle ergometer, and includes:-
Heart Rate,
Minute (Pulmonary) Ventilation,
Oxygen Consumption,
Blood Lactate Concentration.
Measurements can be taken from the trace by pausing it and using
the cross-hair cursor facility provided. The program simulates the
response of a subject working continuously under a work load which
is increased by increments of 20 watts each minute until the subject
is exhausted. The screen display also shows a digital clock and
work load meter. Heart rate is monitored continuously and respiratory
performance is assessed by breath-by-breath analysis of expiratory
air samples. Blood samples may be taken during the exercise regime
and the [lactate] determined using a simulated spectrophotometer.
The program allows subject parameters (age, weight, height, sex,
trained or untrained) to be determined by the user and may thus
be used to compare, for example, male with female performance, or
the effects of training or age. |