Aerobic-based cardiac rehabilitation may help improve heart rate recovery (HRR) in patients with heart failure and low exercise capacity, according to findings published in the American Journal of Cardiology.

HRR is a measure of how quickly the heart rate returns to normal after a period of exercise.

HRR following maximal exercise predicts the risk of death, senior author Dr. Charles L. Stebbins and colleagues from the University of California, Davis, report. “It was hypothesized that aerobic exercise training would increase HRR in patients with heart failure, because it has been shown to be accelerated in athletes and improved in patients with coronary artery disease after cardiac rehabilitation.”

The researchers studied 46 patients who completed an aerobic cardiac rehabilitation program consisting of 40 to 45 minutes of cardiovascular exercise on a bicycle and/or treadmill for 12 weeks.

The aerobic training appeared to have a beneficial effect on oxygen levels in 35 of the patients. Of these patients, 18 had a low HRR when the study began and experienced an improvement in this parameter following training.

These findings suggest that an initial abnormal HRR is a primary factor in determining if exercise training will improve this response in heart failure patients, Stebbins and colleagues conclude.

SOURCE: American Journal of Cardiology, March 2006.