Research

Mixed

Exercise-based rehabilitation may reduce long-term mortality (greater than 12 months) in heart failure patients, although the evidence is less certain than for short-term outcomes.

While short-term mortality is not significantly affected, engaging in exercise may offer a survival benefit over the long term (beyond one year). This supports the value of maintaining an exercise routine as a long-term health strategy for heart failure.

LimitedQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
However, there was trend towards a reduction in mortality with exercise in trials with more than one year of follow-up (6 trials, 2845 participants: RR 0.88; 95% CI 0.75 to 1.02, fixed-effect analysis).
Rod S Taylor et al. · Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews · 2014

Why this rating

Based on 6 trials with longer follow-up, showing a trend but not statistical significance.

Source

Exercise-based rehabilitation for heart failure

Rod S Taylor et al. · Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews · 2014

DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd003331.pub4

Meta-analysis · 33 studiesCited 342×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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