Cardiac Rehabilitation and Functional Capacity of Cardiac Patients - Term Paper Example

Section 1: The major medical complaints recorded in the whole sample and represented in table 0.3 indicate that 65% of the participants had suffered an MI, 45% had angina whereas 52% required a valve replacement. In terms of medications received by the patients on a frequent basis, statistics show that 4% had undergone Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI), 12% had received CABG whereas 13% had gone through valve replacement (refer to Table 0.3). The height, weight and waist circumference of patients from both groups were similar as indicated in Table 0.5. As indicated in Table 0.8, the average blood pressures of each group were not similar at baseline whereby the average systolic blood pressure of the twice a week group was almost 4 mmHg higher than that of once a week group. Additionally, Table 0.8 shows that the distances walked by both groups were not very different (Once vs. Twice) and can be expressed as F 1, 42= 0.11, p= 0.14 at baseline. Section 2: In both rehabilitation programmes, the average values of metres walked and MET values attained for patients increased significantly as indicated in Table 0.8. As indicated in Table 0.9, patients who went through the more frequent programme had a significant improvement in distance walked in ISWT as compared to those that completed the less frequent programme. However, performance between the two groups did not have any significant differences after the programme F 1, 44 = 0.65, p = 0.24 with a very small effect size (Partial eta squared = 0.04). Using co-variants with a small effect size (partial eta squared = 0.04), the results were F 1, 44 = 0.76, p = 0.65. This still did not give any significant differences in the level of ISWT improvement in each group. A further analysis of co-variance indicated that there was a significant relation between the age of participants and the rehabilitation group where results indicated that F 1, 44 = 6.46, p = 0.5). The conclusions were that both services enhanced functional capacity but the community-based programme was identified to be safer and motivates long-term exercise attendance. However, this study by Robinson et al (2009) records the smallest gains in functional capacity as compared to other previous studies (see table 3.9). This difference in functional capacity of the study by Robinson et al (2009) and other studies by Tobin & Thow (1999) and Fowler et al (2005) can be attributed to the regression towards the mean rather than by the treatment in focus (Ostermann et al, 2008). The theory of regression toward the mean as used in Robinson et al (2009) indicated there was less improvement at re-assessment after a CR programme (Ostermann et al, 2008). Through a comparative study of the pre- and post- intervention SWT performance, the effectiveness of CR exercise intervention is shown. The training ranged between six to twelve weeks (mean 8 weeks) with sessions that ranged between 6 and 24 (mean 11 sessions). A survey carried out in 28 CR centers across Australia supports the results obtained in the above studies. This survey recorded a mean length of 7.1 weeks for the CR courses and a mean of 11.6 exercise sessions (Myer et al, 2006). Read More