After undergoing heart surgery or suffering from a heart attack, or heart failure, your physician may prescribe a cardiac rehabilitation program for you. Cardiac rehabilitation, or cardiac rehab, is a medically supervised program that helps improve your cardiovascular health. Attending a cardiac rehab program is proven to significantly reduce your chance of having another cardiac event or requiring another procedure. The program consists of nutrition counseling with a registered dietitian, supervised exercise and conditioning, risk factor modification, education and a support group. Cardiac rehab is about improving your current quality of life.
Despite its value and importance, cardiac rehabilitation is vastly underutilized by patients recovering from heart events, according to a paper published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that advocates for a new model of cardiac rehab delivery. Cardiac rehab was first created in the s for patients recovering from heart attacks, allowing for bed rest and restricted physical activity. It has since evolved into a comprehensive program that helps patients not only physically recover from a heart event but also teaches individuals the skills needed to improve heart health. As such, there is strong evidence showing the importance of cardiac rehab in helping patients make healthy lifestyle changes, improve quality of life and reduce risk of a future heart event. The problem, as the study authors explain, is that cardiac rehab is underutilized for a number of reasons. To start, patients are not consistently referred to cardiac rehab, even when they could benefit greatly from such support—especially women, the elderly, ethnic minorities and individuals with lower income. Among those who are referred to a program, barriers like transportation, work schedules and affordability prevent many individuals from enrolling. In fact, studies show that fewer than half of heart attack patients who receive referrals to cardiac rehab enroll within six months following their event.
Cardiac rehab involves adopting heart-healthy lifestyle changes to address risk factors for cardiovascular disease. To help you adopt lifestyle changes, this program includes exercise training, education on heart-healthy living, and counseling to reduce stress and help you return to an active life. Cardiac rehab can improve your health and quality of life, reduce the need for medicines to treat heart or chest pain, decrease the chance you will go back to a hospital or emergency room for a heart problem, prevent future heart problems, and even help you live longer. Cardiac rehab is provided in an outpatient clinic or in a hospital rehab center. The cardiac rehab team includes doctors, nurses, exercise specialists, physical and occupational therapists, dietitians or nutritionists, and mental health specialists. Sometimes a case manager will help track your care. Your cardiac rehab team will design a program to meet your needs.