Background:

Currently there are varying views on which specific diagnosis of heart patients achieve the most benefit/gain from attending phase II cardiac rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to determine if there are significant differences in pre and post predicted VO2 max measurements among stable angina, acute myocardial infarction (AMI), CABG, PTCA/stent, and valve replacement/repair phase II cardiac rehabilitation patients.

Methods:

The study included 295 male and 116 female patients with one of the above diagnosis who took part in at least 11 one hour sessions of phase II cardiac rehabilitation. Pre and Post VO2 measurements were calculated (VO2 max: 65 + (1.8 * [frequency of exercise]) j (10 * [m/f]) j (0.3 * [age]) j (0.6 * [BMI]) for patients during their first and last rehabilitation sessions.

Results:

The results showed that all diagnosis of patients improved their VO2 max significantly from pre to post rehabilitation. While variation in pre and post VO2 max measurements were found during this study among the different diagnosis, these findings were not statistically significant differences.

Conclusions:

While cardiac rehabilitation does not benefit a specific heart patient diagnosis significantly more than another, cardiac rehabilitation in of its self significantly improves the post VO2 max measurements for all diagnosis` of heart patients.