Evidence-based effects of cardiac rehabilitation and dietary therapy

The cardiac pumps blood throughout the body without rest. When the cardiac is diseased, blood flow is reduced and sometimes blood clots may cause blood vessels to become blocked, leading to death. Cardiac disease is progressive and difficult to cure. Cardiac rehabilitation includes the following comprehensive methods: education for the patient and family, exercise therapy, counseling, nutrition and dietary advice, medication guidance, living guidance, control for stress, return to work training, etc. Those cover a wide range of fields and it is difficult for patients to carry out those methods independently. Therefore, there is a demand for simple cardiac rehabilitation. Tohoku University developed a cardiac rehabilitation method using three types of exercise therapies, and qualitative effects were observed about five years ago. However, a quantitative evaluation is still not fully understood. It is commonly known that losing weight reduces the workload of the cardiac, however, it is unclear how much improvement will be achieved. Cardiac rehabilitation and dietary therapy were carried out on a patient with chronic cardiac failure and complications of atrial fibrillation, and hypertension in this study, and the progress of the subject’s condition was examined. The subject underwent Tohoku University-style cardiac rehabilitation three times a day in this experiment. Namely, weight, blood pressure (systolic and diastolic blood pressures), pulse rate, irregular pulse waves (arrhythmia), etc. were measured at waking and bedtime. The attending doctor regularly checked the subject’s cardiac failure marker levels and used an electrocardiogram to check the frequency of arrhythmias and a comprehensive judgment was carried out.