Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation improves hemodynamic responses after coronary artery bypass graft surgery

Cardiovascular disorders are an important public health problem worldwide.They are also the leading cause of mortality and morbidity. Therefore, American Heart Association proposed cardiac rehabilitation program as an essential part of care for cardiac patients to improve functional capacity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of cardiac rehabilitation program on functional status and some hemodynamic responses in patients after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. Thirty two patients were selected for this study. All patients underwent cardiacsurgery two months before admission. They were allocated to two groups. While the rehabilitationgroup (n =17, mean age: 62 ± 12 years) completed the cardiac rehabilitation program fortwo months, the reference group (n = 15, mean age: 58.5 ± 12.5 years) did not have any supervisedphysical activity during this period. Cardiac rehabilitation program consisted of exercise,nutritional, psychological consultation and risk factor management. At the beginning of the study, functional capacity of patients was evaluated by exercise test, 6-minute walking test and echocardiography. Functional capacity was evaluated for a second time after two months of cardiac rehabilitation. Data were analyzed by SPSS15. For comparing the mean of outcomes, Mann-Whitney test and Wilcoxon signed ranks test were used. As a result of cardiac rehabilitation, a significant improvement was observed in thedistance walked in the rehabilitation group (P < 0.01) compared to the reference group (P = 0.33). It also caused a significant development in hemodynamic responses to exercise such as resting and maximum systolic and diastolic blood pressure, resting and maximum heart rate,ejection fraction and rate pressure product. Cardiac rehabilitation significantly improves functional capacity and some hemodynamic responses post coronary artery bypass grafting. Therefore, patients need to be referredto rehabilitation units.