INTRODUCTION: Studies suggest that exercise therapy may enhance heart rate variability in myocardial infarction, chronic heart failure and revascularization patients by increasing vagal tone and decreasing sympathetic activity. This review addressed the impact of cardiac rehabilitation programs (CRPs) in post CABG patients on the quality of life, in terms of physical function and cardiac risk factors. METHODS: Ovid, ScienceDirect, Embase, AMED and Cochrane Controlled Trial Register were searched for studies published from 2005 up to 2015. Two reviewers assessed the eligibility of each study based on predefined inclusion criteria. RESULTS: Of 35 abstracts reviewed, 9 studies met the inclusion criteria. All studies compared CRPs of different interventions to a control (non-intervention) group. From the selected 9 studies, 6 studies included interventions compared with control groups (usual or standard care) while 3 studies compared two different intervention strategies with groups and included a no-intervention control group. CONCLUSION: This systematic review concludes that all types of CRPs lead to improvements in the quality of life and reduction of cardiac risk factors in post CABG patients. However, these improvements were quite varied between the 9 studies according to variations in the components of CRPs.

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