Abstract
Objective: The objective of this work was to evaluate the effects of cardiac rehabilitation on the physical abilities of patients with heart failure, to compare the parameters of the stress test, the 6-min walk test and cardiac ultrasound before and after cardiac rehabilitation. Design and method: This is a descriptive and analytical cross-sectional study with retrospective and prospective data collection which took place from February 1, 2021 to December 31, 2022. Patients with heart failure of all etiologies combined who received an outpatient cardiovascular rehabilitation program. Data were collected on a pre-established survey form and included anamnestic, clinical, paraclinical and 6-min walk test data. Informed consent was obtained. Data analysis was performed with SPSS version 18 software. Any difference less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: During this study, the frequency of rehabilitated heart failure patients out of the total number of rehabilitated patients for all etiologies was 45.59%. The average age was 57.97 with extremes at 41 and 74 years. The most represented age group was that of 61 to 70 years (35.5%). The predominance was male with a sex ratio of 2.1. The cardiovascular risk factors found were dominated by dyslipidemia (80.6%), physical inactivity (71%), high blood pressure (41.90%) and diabetes (38.70%). The level of cardiovascular risk was high in 48.39% and very high in 35.48% of cases. Coronary disease was the main etiology of heart failure with 80.65% of cases. Systolic blood pressure increased from 126.87 to 126.42 mmhg (p = 0.91), diastolic blood pressure from 78.74 to 74.48 mmhg (p = 0.090) and resting heart rate from 79.23 bpm to 67.06 bpm (p = 0.000). The average LVEF increased from 38.75 to 45.26% (p = 0.001), the number of METS from 4.42 to 7.48 (p = 0.000), as well as the 06-minute walk test from 328 m to 470 m (p = 0.000). No deaths or rehospitalizations were observed during the study. Conclusions: The study shows that cardiovascular rehabilitation is beneficial in heart failure patients with a marked improvement in symptoms, physical capacity and quality of life.
Published Version
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