Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation in the Elderly: Evidence for cardiac rehabilitation after myocardial infarction or chronic heart failure

Abstract

Cardiac rehabilitation in the elderly today often represents a utopia. The international scientific literature takes little into account this type of prescription for old people, although they represent a large and growing proportion of cardiac patients, with acute coronary syndrome or heart failure, which we have to manage in everyday life. Furthermore, interventions of health education, clinical follow up, rehospitalisation prevention and prescription of tailored exercise, are sometimes more necessary in this kind of patients, given the presence of multimorbidity, functional dependence, frailty, sarcopenia, social neglect. Most of the data on the feasibility, safety and efficacy of cardiac rehabilitation are favourable, but they are few and apparently not strong enough to convince the medical community. Therefore is necessary to join efforts to identify the geriatric patient's peculiarities and plan a suitable program of cardiac rehabilitation, which takes into account the multi-dimensionality and complexity of typical problems of the elderly, for which the classical cardiac outcomes can be limited.