Research
Adherence
Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation reduces hospital admissions in the short term (less than 12 months) but does not significantly reduce them in the medium to long term (12+ months).
Participating in cardiac rehab reduces your chances of being hospitalized in the first year after your heart event. However, this specific benefit may not persist beyond 12 months, so focus on the long-term mortality benefits which do continue.
StrongQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
In studies reporting up to 12 months follow-up, total readmissions were reduced with exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation compared with usual care (RR 0.69, 95% CI 0.51, 0.93; Analysis 1.6). There was no significant difference in total hospitalisations in studies with follow-up longer than 12 months.
Why this rating
Based on 10 RCTs (N=2379) included in the systematic review.
Source
Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation for coronary heart disease
Balraj S Heran et al. · Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews · 2011
Meta-analysis · 47 studiesCited 1,830×
Read the paper This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →