Exercise in cardiac rehabilitation

Cardiac rehabilitation is a multidisciplinary rehabilitation program established to assist individuals with heart disease in achieving optimal physical, psychological and social status within limits of their disease. It is useful to divide cardiac rehabilitation to four phases: inhospital care, the early postdischarge period, exercise training period and long-term follow up. Although cardiac rehabilitation has been recommended to all patients with stable heart disease, most of studies cover rehabilitation issues in coronary artery disease. It is also beneficial for patients with congestive heart failure, heart transplantation and heart valve surgery. This article discusses the topics on exercise programme in cardiac rehabilitation, the benefits of cardiac rehabilitation and the importance of cardiac rehabilitation in the setting of different cardiac diseases (congestive heart failure, heart transplantation, heart valve surgery and two important diseases that trigger coronary heart diseases; diabetes and hypertension).