How much exercise heart failure inpatients can perform?

Introduction Decompensated Heart Failure (HF) patients have a significant functional dependence, impairment of performance in activities of daily living and low exercise tolerance. Exercise is a well establish cardiac rehabilitation intervention which leads to improvement of symptoms. The amount of Exercise is directly related to its benefits. Purpose To evaluate the volume of exercise that HF patients preform during the hospitalization Methods 64 patients performed an aerobic exercise training (AET) program (ERICHF: Early rehabilitation in cardiology – heart failure) with 5 sequential stages: respiratory training, cyclo ergometer for 5 to 10 min, walking training for 5 to 10 min and then for 10 to 15 min and walking training for 10 to 15 min followed by 5 min climbing stairs. The patient progresses on the program according to his synthons. The volume of exercise is registered in number of turns on the cyclo ergometer, meters walked, number of steps and total time of exercise. Subjective perception of exertion using Borg scale, and vital signs are evaluated in every training session (twice a day for 5 days a week). At discharge patients preform a 6 minute walking test (6MWT) Results Patients performed 932 sessions of AET with an average of 17 sessions each, for 15 (±9) days of hospitalization. Patients performed progressive periods of exercise, for more time and with lower levels of perceived exertion, presenting an average value of 6 (±3) in the admission and 2(±2) at the discharge. 34 patients reached the final stage of the program (climbing stairs) with an average of 91 steps in 5 minutes, not continuously. The patients who performed a bigger volume of Exercise walked more distance in the 6MWT: 291 (±64) meters compared with patients who didn´t performed stairs: 239 (±27). Conclusions AET can be well tolerated by patients admitted due to decompensated HF and patients who are capable to perform a bigger volume of exercise can improve much more their functional capacity showed by the 6MWT results.