title: Aerobic capacity of coronary heart disease (CHD) patients and its use in accommodating them in the workplace.
abstract: According to the American Heart Association, more than 1.5 million new Americans suffer from heart attacks and angina each year. Approximately one million of these victims survive, making coronary heart disease (CHD) the most pressing health problem in America. Worldwide, survivors of CHD number in millions. The sufferers of CHD create a very significant economic burden on the society (hospital services, medications, diagnostic tests, physician fees, lost work days and productivity, providing disability income to the victims, etc.). Besides the economic burden, pain and suffering, actual and perceived loss of physical capabilities, and grief to the family are other significant losses the victims suffer. The restoration of CHD patients to an active and productive role in society, therefore, has become a major goal of rehabilitation experts. This work provides aerobic capacity data on 111 male and 32 female CHD patients (myocardial infarction, angioplasty, and coronary artery bypass). The Bruce treadmill protocol was used for measuring aerobic capacity. The post-phase II cardiac rehab aerobic capacity for males range from 0.83 l/min to 5.41 l/min. For females the corresponding range was from 0.67 l/min to 4.04 l/min. These capacity data can be used by designers to design jobs that can be performed by CHD patients who have undergone phase II cardiac rehabilitation; successful accommodation of CHD patients, besides restoring their psychological outlook, could result in the savings of billions of dollars. In addition, a listing of jobs that can be performed by CHD patients is provided. The literature-based metabolic energy requirements for these jobs are also provided.
authors.affiliation: Ergonomics and Engineering Controls Research Laboratory, College of Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0116, USA.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mital
authors.forename: G M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Colon-Brown
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D006348:Cardiac Surgical Procedures / Q000534:rehabilitation; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D004734:Energy Metabolism; D005080:Exercise Test; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010101:Oxygen Consumption; D005082:Physical Exertion / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014938:Work Capacity Evaluation