Cardiac patients: Now no excuse not to exercise
Seema Singh -
Wednesday, April 08, 2009 9:19 AM
Millions of heart patients worldwide live with the dilemma
- to exercise or not to exercise. These include patients treated with drug or
device who still have some problems like breathing difficulties and fatigue,
diminished exercise tolerance, reduced quality of life, etc.
Even though existing guidelines recommend exercise
training for medically stable patients, there have been concerns about safety
and clinical outcomes have remained uncertain.
A new study in today's issue of the Journal of American Medical Association
says aerobic exercise training "appears safe for patients with heart failure
and was associated with modest reduction in the risk of death and hospitalization,
with some improvement in quality of life". (This paper is available free.)
In a randomized trial of 2331 patients, Christopher
M. O'Connor of Duke University School of Medicine, North Carolina and
colleagues found that after three months, usual care plus exercise training
brought modest but statistically significant improvement in the patients.
According to a May 2008 Lancet study, by 2010 60%
of the world's heart disease burden is expected to occur in India by which time it
is also estimated that some 100 million people in India will suffer from cardiac disorders. In that case, even a modest increase in the overall quality of life
will have huge ramifications.
Arthritis is another disease where millions of patients
live with a somewhat similar uncertainty - to walk or not to walk (or
exercise).
Do you know of other common ailments where the
Shakespearean dilemma proves difficult to live with?