Objective: To investigate the effect of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) on cardiopulmonary exercise capacity in elderly and younger patients with myocardial infarction (MI).
Methods: Of the MI patients who received hospital-based CR from january 2012 to December 2015, we retrospectively reviewed the medical records of the patients who continued follow-up through the outpatient clinic at subacute stage. A total of 46 patients (18 elderly patient(≥ 60) and 28 younger patient(< 60) ) were included in this study. Exercise capacity was measured by symptom-limited exercise tests before and after hospital-based CR.
Results :Before CR, elderly group had a significantly lower exercise capacity in Peak oxygen consumption(peak VO2) and Metabolic equivalent tasks(METs) and Anaerobic threshold(AT), Respiratory Exchange Ratio (RER) than younger group. After CR, elderly group showed a significantly improved exercise capacity in ET(Exercise time), RPP(Submaximal rate pressure product at stage 3), HR-max, HR-rest, peak VO2, METs, AT, Maximal Pulmonary Ventilation(VEmax) and RER. After CR, younger group showed a significantly improved exercise capacity in ET, RPP, HR-max, HR-rest, SBP-max, peak VO2, METs, AT and VEmax. In comparison of percent changes in exercise capacity before and after cardiac rehabilitation, there is no siginificant difference between elderly group and younger group.
Conclusion : Both elderly and younger groups showed similiar improvement of cardiopulmonary exercise capacity after hospital based CR, but there is low cardicac rehabilitation participation and referal rates with subacute MI patients in Korea. Our analysis identifies need to improve the cardiac rehabilitation referal and participation rate in subacute elderly MI patients.
Key Words: Elderly, Exercise capacity, Cardiac rehabilitation, Subacute
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