Participation in Cardiac Rehabilitation Program for Patients with Different Risk Categories in Sarawak Heart Center

• Main Authors: BK, Leong, KL, Yew, CC, Chai, SMW, Wafa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Medcom Limited 2016
• Subjects: R Medicine (General)
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/39618/1/2016-November%20chai%20hong%20kong%20presentation.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/39618/; https://www.jhkcc.com.hk/journal/; https://doi.org/10.55503/2790-6744.1026

Objective: Exercise therapy and education program are two important components of cardiac rehabilitation program (CRP). Compliance to the prescribed program is important in order to achieve the desired therapeutic effects. The study compared the various risk categories of participation in the CRP. Methods: This cross-sectional retrospective study enrolled 148 consecutive patients who attended the CRP in Sarawak Heart Center from March 2014 to February 2015. Subsequently, 106 patients proceeded for exercise stress test (EST) prior to enrolling into CRP. We analyzed the demographic, functional profile, association between risk category and participation in CRP. Results: The results showed that the cohort mean age was 54 years with a range of 30 and 75. As for functional assessment with six minute walk test, our participants could cover a varying distance of 132 to 600 meters with a mean distance of 407 meters. The mean maximum workload achievable for EST was 8.2 Mets (range 1.4-14.5 Mets). All low risk group patients were enrolled into the full program with only 8% default rate. 84.7% of moderate risk group entered the program with 15.3% default rate. Fifty percent of the high-risk group enrolled for the full program when they could achieve more than 4 Mets of maximum workload during the EST. The remaining of the high risk group alternatively participated in the education program which recorded the highest default rate of 18.2%. The low risk group had the best compliance rate which could be attributed to higher exercise program enjoyment. This study showed the association of the different risk categories and the level of participation in our center CRP. Conclusion: Our cardiac rehabilitation program had overall high participation rate in all risk categories, we could improve further the level of participation for the high risk group by introducing telemetry monitoring which allow more patients to enroll in full program.