Cardiovascular exercise and wellness. Exercise training for cardiac rehabilitation patients: meeting the challenges of the millennium.
Exercise training for cardiac rehabilitation has evolved over the past decades in response to a growing knowledge base in exercise physiology, an expanding understanding to the knowledge base of coronary disease, and a change in the patients presenting for cardiac rehabilitation. The patient population has changed from a post myocardial infarction patient group, to patients who have had coronary artery revascularization (coronary artery bypass surgery or percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty) with the implantation of intraarterial stents. Program goals have evolved from enhancing endurance fitness in deconditioned patients to initiating the long-term adoption of an active exercising lifestyle with the use of strength training to complement endurance training. An increased understanding of behavioral issues in the adoption of an active lifestyle will influence the evolution of cardiac rehabilitation exercise training. During the next several years, it is anticipated that the patient population will change to include patients with significant left ventricular systolic dysfunction and congestive heart failure. The exercise training programs will then further evolve to reflect the successful exercise training formats utilized in the multicenter trials of exercise training for patients with congestive heart failure. (c) 2000 by CHF, Inc.
Stein
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Division of Cardiology, The Brooklyn Hospital Center, Brooklyn, NY 11201.
Goldsmith
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