Effects of home-based exercise rehabilitation on quality of life after coronary artery bypass graft and PCI early post-discharge

The barriers to participation in cardiac rehabilitation programs are individual and economic problems and limited availability and access of rehabilitation services. Because of the important role of rehabilitation, home based exercise rehabilitation is a new approach to participate in such programs. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of home-based rehabilitation on quality of life (QoL) in patients with coronary artery disease after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) and PCI. Participants included 18 CABG (3 women, 15 men) and 40 PCI (12 women, 28 men) low to moderate risk patients. Finally 17 patients in the exercise group and 16 patients in the control group remained. The SF-36 was used to evaluate changes in QoL before and after the program. forty-three percent was dropped out from the program. Before and after program, the exercise group was better in all domains of QoL (p<0.05). After 8 weeks of cardiac rehabilitation, significant improvements were observed in quality of life in both groups (p<0.05) but the exercise group showed more improvements in three domains. Home-based exercise rehabilitation after CABG and PCI may improve QoL and provide an efficient low-cost approach to cardiac rehabilitation. It may be helpful due to limited availability and resources in Iran. Nevertheless, for increasing participation and decreasing drop out it needs more training.