Cardiac Rehabilitation Week is February 10-16
February is American Heart Month
OWATONNA, Minn. 02/05/2008-- Statement by Mary Trautman, cardiac rehabilitation registered nurse at Owatonna Hospital, on the importance of cardiac rehabilitation for a healthy heart.
When Joe was told by his doctor that he would need heart surgery because of blocked arteries, he felt his life was over. Joe’s dad had died of a heart attack at 50. Joe thought he would suffer the same fate, but he was lucky.
After his surgery, he enrolled in a cardiac rehabilitation program. Now, five years later, Joe jogs every day, has lost weight, and lowered his blood pressure as a result of his rehabilitation program.
While Joe is not a real person, he is like over 100,000 Americans each year who are helped to recover from heart attacks or heart surgery through cardiac rehabilitation. February 10-16 is National Cardiac Rehabilitation Week. The theme of this week is “Cardiac Rehabilitation: A Smart Start to a Healthy Heart” to highlight the role of prevention and education in the treatment of heart disease.
High cholesterol, high blood pressure, and smoking are considered to be the three major risk factors for heart disease. Each year about one million people survive heart attacks in the United States. Additionally, more than seven million people have stable angina, and more than 800,000 patients have had coronary artery intervention procedures (e.g. stents and bypass surgery).
All of these people with heart disease could benefit from a cardiac rehabilitation program. Cardiac rehabilitation is helpful to patients with angina pectoris (chest pain due to clogged heart arteries), recent heart attack, coronary artery bypass surgery or PTCA (balloon angioplasty). It also applies to patients with congenital cardiovascular disease, who may or may not have had surgery.
What is Cardiac Rehabilitation?
Cardiac Rehabilitation is a medically supervised program to help heart patients recover quickly and improve their overall physical and mental functioning. The goal is to reduce the risk of another cardiac event or to keep an already present heart condition from getting worse. Comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation has been shown to reduce re-hospitalization rates, reduce recurrent sudden cardiac death, lessen the need for cardiac medications, and increase the rate of persons returning to work.
Cardiac rehabilitation programs can help you change your lifestyle habits. These programs often take place at a hospital with a rehabilitation team. Many people find that rehabilitation programs are very helpful after going home from the hospital. They allow people to join a group to exercise and to get special help in making lifestyle changes.
What does a Cardiac Rehabilitation program look like?
An exercise program is normally included in cardiac rehabilitation, but rehabilitation usually is tailored to each patient's specific needs. Exercise may be very structured, with heart monitoring. It depends upon the patient's specific heart problem and other health problems. Combining all aspects of cardiovascular rehabilitation improves functional capacity and quality of life, reduces risk factors, and may create a sense of well-being and optimism about the future.
In addition to exercise, cardiac rehabilitation programs include, counseling so the patient can understand and manage the disease process, helping the patient modify risk factors such as high blood pressure, smoking, high blood cholesterol, physical inactivity, obesity and diabetes, providing vocational guidance to enable the patient to return to work, supplying information on physical limitations and lending emotional support.
Know the warning signs of a heart attack
It’s important for everyone to be aware of the warning signs of a heart attack. Men and women’s symptoms are not the same. Some heart attacks are sudden and intense, but most of them start slowly with mild pain or discomfort with one or more of these symptoms, chest discomfort, back pain, discomfort in other areas of the upper body, shortness of breath with or without chest discomfort, as well as other signs including breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness. When in doubt, get evaluated as soon as possible.
If you experience any of these symptoms, call 911, don’t drive yourself.
To learn more about Owatonna Hospital’s Cardiac Rehab program, call 507-451-3850, ext. 4412.
Related Links
Owatonna Hospital Cardiac Rehab Program
Heart Health Condition Center
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