What Is Cardiac Rehabilitation?

Cardiac rehabilitation (rehab) is a medically supervised program that helps improve the health and well-being of people who have heart problems. Rehab programs include exercise training, education on heart healthy living, and counseling to reduce stress and help you return to an active life.

Cardiac rehab can help you:

1. Recover after a heart attack or heart surgery.
2. Prevent future hospital stays, heart problems, and death related to heart problems.
3. Address risk factors that can lead to CHD and other heart problems. These risk factors include high blood pressure, high blood cholestrol, overweight or obesity, diabetes, smoking, lack of physical activity, depression and other emotional health concerns.
4. Adopt healthy lifestyle changes. These changes may include, following a heart healthy diet, being physically active, and learning how to manage stress.

Outlook

-People of all ages can benefit from cardiac rehab. The lifestyle changes made during rehab have few risks. These changes can improve your overall health and prevent future heart problems and even death.
-Exercise training as part of cardiac rehab might not be safe for all patients. For example, if you have very high blood pressure or severe heart disease, you might not be ready for exercise. However, you can still benefit from other parts of the cardiac rehab program.

People of all ages and ethnic backgrounds and both sexes can benefit from cardiac rehabilitation (rehab). Rehab can help people who have had:
- A heart attack.
- Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), sometimes referred to as angioplasty for CHD.
- CABG for coronary heart disease.
- Heart valve repair or replacement.
- A heart transplant or a lung transplant.
- Stable angina.