Objective: To investigate the effect of cardiac rehabilitation program in patients with coronary Artery disease after applying critical pathway.
Method: The subjects of this study were patients who received percutaneous coronary intervention and who participated in a cardiac rehabilitation program. The supervised exercise group participated in 6-8 weeks of aerobic exercise training with telemetry ECG monitoring in hospital. The self-exercise group was instructed to participate in self-exercise training with specialized exercise planner in a community and was checked the duration and quality of their exercise by rehabilitation doctor. Both groups underwent the exercise tolerance test (ETT) using a modified Bruce or Ramp protocol before and 2 months after initiation of the cardiac rehabilitation program. We compared the supervised exercise group with the self exercise groups on exercise capacity.
Results: The supervised exercise group showed significantly low initial maximum oxygen consumption, compared with self-exercise group, since more severe patients with moderate and high risk were included. After 2 months, the super maximum oxygen consumption vised exercise group showed significant changes in, six minute walk distance and MET. The self-exercise group also showed significant improvement of maximum oxygen consumption, six minute walk distance and maximal heart rate. And the supervised exercise group has significantly improved maximum oxygen consumption than the self- exercise group with moderate and high risk.
Conclusion: All patients showed significant improvement of cardiopulmonary exercise capacity after 2 months��� participation in the cardiac rehabilitation program. And especially in patients with moderate and high risk, we recommend the supervised cardiac rehabilitation.