Exercise and heart failure

Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a common condition with a poor prognosis, commonly associated with poor exercise tolerance and debilitation symptoms despite optimal modern therapy. Recent investigations have shown that the degree of exercise limitation may be related to pathophysiological changes that occur systemically in the patient with CHF. Exercise training in carefully selected stable patients with heart failure has been shown to be safe to correct many of these pathophysiological changes in the periphery and to lead to worthwhile improvements in exercise capacity. Recent studies have suggested a possible improvement in mortality and morbidity with exercise training in this patient group. This article discusses the factors limiting exercise capacity in CHF and reviews the controlled clinical trial of exercise testing in this condition.