Cardiac Rehabilitation Is Beneficial for Seniors

Survival is significantly greater among those who enroll in 25 or more rehabilitation sessions

28 june 2009-- In older coronary patients, survival is significantly greater in those who attend multiple cardiac rehabilitation sessions, according to a study published in the June 30 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Jose A. Suaya, M.D., of Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., and colleagues analyzed data on 601,099 Medicare beneficiaries who were hospitalized for coronary conditions or cardiac revascularization procedures.

The researchers found that only 12.2 percent of patients used cardiac rehabilitation, and that they used it for an average of 24 sessions. But they also found that cardiac rehabilitation users with 25 or more sessions were 19 percent less likely to die over the next five years than those who had 24 or fewer sessions.

"This was a well-designed, sophisticated study," state the authors of an accompanying editorial. "It provides evidence that there is indeed a clinically important effect of cardiac rehabilitation in actual practice. We can debate whether the true size of the effect is 10 percent or 30 percent, but both are large when translated into absolute population numbers. The central issue becomes how to improve cardiac rehabilitation referral and compliance, given that fewer than 50 percent of patients access these programs even in publicly funded systems."

Abstract
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