Is the Clinical Delivery of Cardiac Rehabilitation in an Australian Setting Associated with Changes in Physical Capacity and Cardiovascular Risk and Are Any Changes Maintained for 12 Months?

Kym Joanne Price, Brett Ashley Gordon, Stephen Richard Bird and Amanda Clare Benson
Additional contact information
Kym Joanne Price: Discipline of Exercise Sciences, School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3083, Australia
Brett Ashley Gordon: Holsworth Research Initiative, La Trobe Rural Health School, La Trobe University, Bendigo, VIC 3550, Australia
Stephen Richard Bird: Discipline of Exercise Sciences, School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3083, Australia
Amanda Clare Benson: Sport Innovation Research Group, Department of Health and Biostatistics, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 17, 1-15

Abstract: Long-term maintenance of changes in cardiovascular risk factors and physical capacity once patients leave the supervised program environment have not previously been reported. This study investigated the changes in physical capacity outcomes and cardiovascular risk factors in an Australian cardiac rehabilitation setting, and the maintenance of changes in these outcomes in the 12 months following cardiac rehabilitation attendance. Improvements in mean (95% CI) cardiorespiratory fitness (16.4% (13.2–19.6%), p < 0.001) and handgrip strength (8.0% (5.4–10.6%), p < 0.001) were observed over the course of the cardiac rehabilitation program, and these improvements were maintained in the 12 months following completion. Waist circumference ( p = 0.003) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ( p < 0.001) were the only traditional cardiovascular risk factors to improve during the cardiac rehabilitation program. Vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise was associated with significantly greater improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness, Framingham risk score, and waist circumference in comparison to moderate-intensity exercise. An increase in the intensity of the exercise prescribed during cardiac rehabilitation in Australia is recommended to induce larger improvements in physical capacity outcomes and cardiovascular risk. A standardized exercise test at the beginning of the rehabilitation program is recommended to facilitate appropriate prescription of exercise intensity.

Keywords: exercise prescription; cardiovascular disease; cardiovascular risk factors; cardiac rehabilitation; exercise capacity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/17/8950/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/17/8950/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:17:p:8950-:d:621692

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().