Abstract

Cardiac rehabilitation involves delivery of structured exercise, education and risk reduction, in a cost-effective manner. Robust evidence demonstrates it reduces mortality up to 25%, improves functional capacity, as well as decreases re-hospitalization. Despite its benefits, and clinical practice guideline recommendations to refer cardiac patients, cardiac rehabilitation programs are grossly under-used. Worldwide, there is low availability of cardiac rehabilitation; only 38.8% of countries globally have cardiac rehabilitation programs. Specifically, 68.0% of high-income and 23% of lower middle income class have cardiac rehabilitation. Cardiac rehabilitation density estimates ranged from 1 program per 0.1–6.4 million inhabitants. Cardiac rehabilitation availability is much lower than that of other evidence-based secondary prevention therapies, such as revascularization and pharmacological therapies. Multi-level strategies to augment cardiac rehabilitation capacity and availability at national and international levels such as supportive public health policies, systematic referral strategies, and alternative models of delivery are needed.

Full Text
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