title: Exercise therapy for an older patient with left ventricular assist device.
abstract: A left ventricular assist device (LVAD) is a mechanical circulation support implanted for patients with end-stage heart failure. It may be used either as a bridge to cardiac transplantation or as a destination therapy. The health of a 75-year-old man with a medical history of systolic heart failure worsened. Therefore, he was recommended to have implanted a LVAD (Thoratec Corp.) as a destination therapy. After the surgery, he was enrolled in patient cardiac rehabilitation for the improvement of dyspnea and exercise capacity. In results, there is an improvement on his exercise capacity and quality of life. For the first time in Korea, we reported a benefit of exercise therapy after being implanted with a LVAD.
authors.affiliation: Divison of Sports Medicine, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Won Hah
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Divison of Sports Medicine, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Yong Gon
authors.initials: YG
authors.lastname: Seo
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Ji Dong
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Sung
keywords: Destination therapy; Exercise therapy; Left ventricular assist device (LVAD)