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 .
Four-week multidisciplinary cardiac rehabilitation produces similar improvements in exercise capacity and quality of life to a 10-week program.
BACKGROUND Cardiac rehabilitation ( CR ) is widely accepted as beneficial for patients with myocardial infa rct ion ( MI ) and coronary artery bypass graft ( CABG ) . A need exists to evaluate how different formats of delivery can best meet CR service dem and s. METHODS AND RESULTS Cardiac patients ( n = 60 ) were r and omly assigned to either a st and ard 10-week ( 30 sessions ) or a 4-week ( 20 sessions ) multifactorial rehabilitation program . Patients underwent exercise testing using the Bruce protocol before , immediately after , and then 6 months after CR . Patients also completed the SF-36 quality of life question naire and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale at each time point . Compared with pre-CR , exercise time and metabolic equivalents attained were significantly increased , and heart rate significantly decreased both immediately ( P<.05 ) and 6 months after CR ( P<.05 ) in both groups , with no between-group differences . Significant improvements ( P<.05 ) in energy , pain , and general health were reported after CR , and in energy and emotional and social well-being at 6 months after CR . No differences were seen between the groups . CONCLUSIONS Cardiac rehabilitation after MI and CABG significantly improved exercise capacity and general health and well-being . No significant differences were detected between groups undergoing a 10-week or 4-week course . These preliminary data suggest that shortened courses of CR may be beneficial to cardiac patients and such courses may also facilitate more widespread use of CR
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 .