Renata Kielnar
Elżbieta Domka-Jopek
The importance of the evaluation of the quality of life before and after a three – month cardiological group rehabilitation of patie nts suffering from coronary heart disease
Renata Kielnar
Elżbieta Domka-Jopek
Z Instytutu Fizjoterapii Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego
Institute of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Rzeszów, Rzeszów, Poland
Abstract
There are between 1,5-2 mln patients suffering from ischaemic heart disease in Poland. It is the most common disease of cardio-vascular system. It can lead to serious heart disorders such as: heart attack, cardiogenic shock, cerebral stroke. Cardiological rehabilitation helps patients to regain psychophysical fitness which is one of its main aims.
The aim of this research is the evaluation of the quality of life before and after a three-month cardiological rehabilitation of patients suffering from coronary heart disease.
Beck Depression Inventory and short form health survey SF-36 were used in the research. In addition Borg scale was used to describe the intensity of training. All the patients filled the questionnaire 356 before and after the rehabilitation. Twenty-six patients (6 women and 20 men) who suffered from an infarctus cordis, underwent cardiological operations, pacemaker implantation, coronary angioplasty or a serious heart disorders were examined. The average age was 60. The rehabilitation programme consisted of 24 one-hour sessions carried out 2–3 times a week.
Those sessions included 30 minutes of general keep-fit exercises and 30 minutes of cycloergometer exercise (intervallic training) with the submaximum load individually adjusted to each patient. All the time EKG was under control. The rehabilitation lasted about 3 months. Patients did the exercises in groups of six.
The results of the research carried out through the short form health survey SF-36 and Beck Depression Inventory, show that the cardiological rehabilitation significantly improves the level of the quality of life, patients’ mental state and also lowers patients’ depression. Patients who underwent the rehabilitation became more tolerant toward physical effort as the intensity of training grew (on average from 59 to 89,6 Watt).
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited