BACKGROUND: Rehabilitation measures are crucial for maintaining clinical benefits of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery. We evaluated the clinical efficacy of a medical centre- and home-based cardiac rehabilitation (CR) for patients after CABG in an out-patient setting. METHODS: The study included 36 male patients 3 to 8 weeks after CABG that were randomly assigned to either study or control group. Patients from the study group performed a 60 min exercise in controlled setting 3 times a week for 4 months followed by home-based exercise later on, while patients from the control group only received a recommendation to perform the exercise at home in an uncontrolled setting. Total duration of the follow-up was 12 months. RESULTS: Physical endurance in the study group increased by 32.6% (p < 0.05) in comparison to baseline after 4 months, and was maintained at this level after 12 months, while in the control group, an improvement of 9.8% (p < 0.05) was observed after 12 months. Moreover, patients from the study group demonstrated a stable level of such risk factors as blood total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, while in the control group, these parameters increased by 10.2% (p < 0.05) and 15.6% (p < 0.05) respectively by the end of follow-up. Controlled medical centre-based exercise resulted in improvement of patients' quality of life and reduction of cardiovascular complications (11.1% against 39.2% in the control group). CONCLUSION: The integral (medical centre and home-based) stage III CR program after CABG helped reducing cardiovascular risk factors, and improved clinical parameters and functional capacity of patients.
With permission from Excerpta Medica Inc.

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