[Cardiac rehabilitation after cardiovascular surgery in elderly patients]

We assessed whether cardiac rehabilitation after acquired cardiovascular surgery in octogenarians was helpful to return daily life or not. Among overall 3,050 patients in these 10 years, 130 patients (4.3%) aged 80 years or older underwent cardiovascular surgery in our institute. Cardiac rehabilitation program in hospital was achieved in 118 octogenarians after surgery. Physical and phychological activity had improved by means of this program. Notably, observational rehabilitation on monitor and examination of anaerobic threshold (AT) point were of great importance to evaluate the efficacy of cardiac rehabilitation. Thereby, hospital stay after surgery was longer than usual, mean hospital stay was 32.1 +/- 5.1 days. Future perspectives of cardiac rehabilitation in an outpatient would be expected.