BACKGROUND: The authors examined the importance of the frequency of aerobic exercise training in multidisciplinary rehabilitation in improving health-related quality of life in the short run in patients with documented coronary artery disease. METHODS: Patients (114 males and 16 females; age range 32 to 70 years) were randomized into either a high-frequency or a low-frequency exercise training program (10 versus 2 sessions per week, respectively) as part of a 6-week multidisciplinary cardiac rehabilitation program. The General Health Questionnaire and the RAND-36 were used to assess changes in psychological distress and subjective health status. RESULTS: After 6 weeks, high-frequency patients reported significantly more positive, change in "psychological distress" (p < 0.05), "mental health" (p = 0.05), and "health change" (p < 0.01), than low-frequency patients. Apart from changes in mean scores, individual effect sizes indicated that a significantly greater percentage of high-frequency patients experienced substantial improvements in "psychological distress" (p < 0.01), "physical functioning" (p < 0.05), and "health change" (p < 0.05), compared with low-frequency patients. In addition, deterioration of quality of life was observed in a considerable number of high-frequency patients (ranging from 1.7% to 25.8% on the various measures). CONCLUSIONS: The frequency of aerobic exercise has a positive, independent effect on psychological outcomes after cardiac rehabilitation. However, this benefit after high-frequency rehabilitation appears to be limited to a subgroup of patients. Further investigation is required to identify these patients. Results provide input into recent controversies regarding the role of exercise training in cardiac rehabilitation.
For more information on this journal, please visit http://www.lww.com.

Full text (sometimes free) may be available at these link(s):      help

• PubMed
• PDF locator
• publisher