Improvements in cardiovascular risk and physical fitness during cardiac rehabilitation: which improvements are related to reductions in risk for major adverse cardiac events during follow-up?

Abstract

The aim of this literature study is to see if cardiac rehabilitation (CR) will improve the cardiovascular (CV) risk factors and physical fitness of patients with Cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Another part of our literature study is the correlation of these improvements in CV risk factors with reductions for major adverse cardiac events during follow-up. Contradictory findings were found in all-cause mortality and morbidity. Cardiac-related death was reduced through CR for short and long-term follow-up.There is an improvement in exercise capacity, systolic blood pressure, triglycerides concentration, total cholesterol concentration and hospitalization through CR. There was also a reduction in the smoking population up to one year follow-up. Positive findings were found in body composition and fasting glucose. Four studies assessed the effect of CR on mortality and on the CV risk factors, two of these studies reported that there could be a reduction in risk for mortality because of the change in systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol concentration and smoking behaviour.