Cardiac rehabilitation: a contemporary review

Cardiac rehabilitation is increasingly recognized as an essential part of the continuum of care for patients with cardiovascular disease. The discipline has evolved over the last 15 yrs to reflect the importance of targeted initiatives in the management of cardiovascular risk factors. Changes in program scope have broadened to shift the emphasis away from primarily focusing on exercise therapy to embracing a comprehensive secondary prevention strategy addressing the multiple medical, exercise, nutritional, and behavioral factors that place a patient at increased risk of a subsequent cardiac event. Cardiac rehabilitation is a class I recommendation in most current cardiovascular clinical practice guidelines. Despite the large body of literature verifying the sizeable morbidity and mortality benefits, cardiac rehabilitation services are vastly underused. The implementation of recent performance measures will provide the potential to boost referral to, enrollment in, and completion of cardiac rehabilitation programs. The goals, core components, benefits, risks, and outcome measures of cardiac rehabilitation will be reviewed.