A study in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology showed that older people have the most to benefit and may benefit from rehabilitation programs, but this need is often ignored. Regular exercise is highly beneficial for all patients with cardiovascular disease regardless of age. Results from the study showed that the patients who benefited most from cardiac rehabilitation were those who started out with the great physical impairment.
Elderly patients are at a higher risk for complications after a cardiovascular event (any incidents that may cause damage to the heart muscle), yet they are largely underrepresented in rehabilitation programs. Studies have shown that this might be due to a lack of referral and encouragement to attend cardiac rehabilitation to older patients.
“Aging is associated with several factors such as increased inflammation or oxidative stress that predispose people to cardiovascular diseases. As a result, elderly patients are usually less fit than the younger generation, and their deconditioning is accelerated once a cardiovascular disease is established,” explained by the lead investigator Gaelle Deley, PhD.
Several studies have also looked at the effects of rehabilitation in older adults. However, these results were often focused on patients above the age of 65 with no distinction between old and very old patients and examine either physical or psychological outcomes but not both.
The goal of their study was to compare the effects of an exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation program on physical and psychological parameters in young, old, and very old patients. Their study also aimed to identify the features that best predicted cardiac rehabilitation outcomes.
Following the intervention, all patients that were involved in their study experienced improvements.
“We found a few weeks of exercise training not only significantly improved exercise capacity, but also decreased anxiety and depression. Patients with the greatest physical impairments at baseline benefited the most from exercise,” said Dr. Deley. “Another interesting result was that patients younger than 65 who were very anxious before rehabilitation benefited the most from exercise training. A similar result was found for depressed patients older than 65. These improvements will surely have a great positive impact on patients’ independence and quality of life and might help both clinicians and patients to realize how beneficial exercise rehabilitation can be.”
Cardiovascular diseases are the main cause of death globally. Nearly 18 million people died from cardiovascular diseases in 2016, representing over 30 percent of all global deaths according to the World Health Organization. While cardiovascular diseases increasingly affect young people, the number of people above the age of 65 years, and even more above the age of 80 years, dying from cardiovascular diseases is also increasing.
Jan Carlo A. Zamora | Regina Lucis High School
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