Conclusions Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation is effective at reducing important clinical outcomes in patients with coronary heart disease .
While our analysis was constrained by the quality of included trials and missing information about intervention components , there appears to be little differential effect of variations in exercise intervention , particularly on mortality outcomes .
Background While the clinical benefits of exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation are well established , there is extensive variation in the interventions used within these trials .
It is unknown whether variations in individual components of these exercise interventions provide different relative contributions to overall clinical outcomes .
This study aims to systematic ally examine the relationship between individual components of the exercise intervention in cardiac rehabilitation ( such as intensity and frequency ) and clinical outcomes for people with coronary heart disease .
Home versus group exercise training for increasing functional capacity after myocardial infarction.
To evaluate the efficacy of exercise training for increasing functional capacity in the 6 months after clinical ly uncomplicated myocardial infa rct ion , 198 men 52 + /- 9 years of age participated in a training study . They were r and omly assigned to one of four exercise protocol s : 8 to 26 weeks of training at home ( group 1 , n = 66 ) or in a group program ( group 2 , n = 61 ) following treadmill testing performed 3 weeks after infa rct ion , treadmill testing at 3 weeks without subsequent training ( group 3 , n = 34 ) , and treadmill testing for the first time at 26 weeks ( control , n = 37 ) . At 26 weeks functional capacity was significantly higher in patients training at home or in a group program than that in patients without training or in control patients : 8.1 + /- 1.5 , 8.5 + /- 1.3 , 7.5 + /- 1.8 , and 7.0 + /- 1.7 METs , respectively ( p less than .05 and p less than .001 ) . No significant differences in functional capacity were noted between patients training at home and those in a group program . No training-related complications occurred . Home and group training are equally effective in increasing functional capacity of low-risk patients after myocardial infa rct ion
Conclusions Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation is effective at reducing important clinical outcomes in patients with coronary heart disease .
While our analysis was constrained by the quality of included trials and missing information about intervention components , there appears to be little differential effect of variations in exercise intervention , particularly on mortality outcomes .
Background While the clinical benefits of exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation are well established , there is extensive variation in the interventions used within these trials .
It is unknown whether variations in individual components of these exercise interventions provide different relative contributions to overall clinical outcomes .
This study aims to systematic ally examine the relationship between individual components of the exercise intervention in cardiac rehabilitation ( such as intensity and frequency ) and clinical outcomes for people with coronary heart disease .