Cardiac Rehabilitation and Physical Performance in Patients after Myocardial Infarction: Preliminary Research

Abstract

(1) Background: Cardiovascular diseases, in particular, myocardial infarction (MI), are the main threats to human health in modern times. Cardiac rehabilitation (CR), and especially increased physical activity, significantly prevent the consequences of MI. The aim of this study was to assess physical performance in patients after MI before and after CR. (2) Methods: 126 patients after MI were examined. They were admitted to the cardiac rehabilitation ward twice: in the 3rd month after MI, and then in the 6th month after the last rehabilitation session. CR lasted 20 treatment days (4 weeks with 5 treatment days and 2 days’ break). The exercise stress test on the treadmill and a 6-minute walk test (6MWT) were used to assess physical performance. Patients were assigned to an appropriate rehabilitation model due to their health condition. (3) Results: In the studied group, the exercise stress test time and the metabolic equivalent of task (MET), the maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max), and 6MWT score increased significantly (p = 0.0001) at two time-points of observation. (4) Conclusion: CR significantly improves physical performance in patients after MI.

Influence of Risk Factors on Exercise Tolerance in Patients after Myocardial Infarction—Early Cardiac Rehabilitation in Poland

“…Our findings indicated that the CSC-Infarct can improve symptoms, functional capacity, and health-related quality of life in MI patients. These benefits are associated with faster recovery in MI patients compared to groups that enter the second stage of CR later than the average of 10 days after MI [ 29 ].…”

“…DPr shows how the heart is coping with a given exercise and how much work it took to overcome the given load on a treadmill. The DPr may also be of great prognostic value in the assessment of cardiovascular function in healthy people with different fitness levels [ 29 ]. Our research revealed that the resting index based on DPr increased after the 4-weeks CSC-Infarct rehabilitation program.…”

“…The Shapiro–Wilk test was used to verify the normal distribution of quantitative variables. However, the Leven (Brown–Forsythe) test was used to verify the hypothesis about the equality of variances [ 29 , 30 ]. The significance of the differences between the two groups (unrelated variable model) was tested with Student’s t -test, Welch’s test (when variance was heterogeneous), or 5 Mann–Whitney’s U test (when conditions for the use of Student’s t -test were not met or when variables were measured on an ordinal scale).…”

Exercise Training Alleviates Cardiac Fibrosis through Increasing Fibroblast Growth Factor 21 and Regulating TGF-β1-Smad2/3-MMP2/9 Signaling in Mice with Myocardial Infarction

“…The adult mammalian heart is limited to repair after injury, and the lost cells are replaced by a fibrotic scar, which results in cardiac dysfunction. Exercise training has been proven to be an effective strategy of rehabilitation for MI patients [11,12]. Some studies detected the cardioprotective effects of different types of exercise models [6,7,9,10].…”

“…Ameliorating cardiac fibrosis and inhibiting cardiomyocytes apoptosis would be key therapeutic targets to improve cardiac function following MI. Increasing data from clinic and animal research suggests that exercise training is an effective strategy in improving cardiac function [6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Exercise training has beneficial effects on preventing or reversing pathological cardiac remodeling by reducing collagen production [13].…”