Does participation in cardiac rehabilitation affect health outcomes and health care utilization and costs?

Exercise based cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs have been shown to be efficacious in the reduction of recurrent cardiovascular events and increased physical and psychological function. However, in North America only about 10-40% of eligible CVD patients are referred to CR. One reason for poor CR referral may be a lack of information on the costs and health care utilization associated with CR. Thus, the purpose of this project was to explore differences in health care utilization and costs among patients who attended and did not attend cardiac rehabilitation

Effects of a comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation program on quality of life and exercise tolerance in women: A retrospective analysis

BACKGROUND: Currently, there are a lack of investigations that have examined the effect of participating in a comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation program on quality of life and physiological measures in women of different ages. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the effect of participating in a comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation program on quality of life, exercise tolerance, blood pressure and lipids in women between 33 and 82 years of age. METHODS: The 126 women participated in a 14-week cardiac rehabilitation program that consisted of 7 weeks of formal supervised exercise training and 7 weeks of unsupervised exercise and lifestyle modification. Physiologic and quality of life outcome measures obtained at the outset and after 14 weeks included: 1) exercise treadmill time; 2) resting and peak systolic and diastolic blood pressure; 3) total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high density lipoprotein cholesterol and Triglycerides; 4) Cardiac Quality of Life Index questionnaire. RESULTS: Significant improvements were found in the following quality of life measures after participating in the cardiac rehabilitation program: physical well being, psychosocial, worry, nutrition and symptoms. No significant differences were seen for any QOL variable between the different age groups. Significant improvements were seen in exercise tolerance (+21%) and high density lipoprotein (+5%). CONCLUSION: Cardiac rehabilitation may play an important role in improving quality of life, exercise tolerance and high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in younger and older women with underlying cardiovascular disease