Cardiac Rehabilitation Program
Program Objectives
The objectives of our cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation (rehab) programs are to help people with heart and lung disease recover faster and return to their optimal level of health and lifestyle. These objectives are accomplished through a collaboration among specially trained nurses, therapists, social workers, and other health professionals who have expertise in providing coordinated care for rehabilitation.
Who Can Benefit from Cardiac Rehab?
Anyone who has suffered a cardiac event, such as bypass surgery, angioplasty, stent placement, heart attack, chest pain, or heart transplant can benefit greatly from our cardiac rehab program. Individuals who have risk factors for heart disease (high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes) and smokers also can benefit from the program. However, for the program to be effective for you, you must dedicate yourself to making positive changes in your lifestyle.
Rewards of the Program
Regular participation in cardiac rehab will help you reach the fullest extent of your physical ability safely and comfortably while helping you reduce your risk of further cardiac events. Cardiac rehab also will help alleviate such current cardiac symptoms as fatigue, weakness, chest pain, and depression. Participation also can aid in the control of diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol, body fat and stress.
Three Phases of Cardiac Rehab
Phase I often begins while you are still in the hospital. It consists of walking, simple exercises and education.
Phase II begins from two to four weeks after you’ve been discharged from the hospital. It includes establishing a baseline of your cholesterol levels, heart rate, EKG and blood pressure, then developing individualized and closely supervised exercise sessions for you. During these sessions, your heart rate, heart rhythm and blood pressure will be monitored while you use a variety of upper and lower body conditioning. This phase usually lasts from eight to twelve weeks.
Phase III is your ongoing health maintenance, outpatient exercise program. You will be offered the opportunity to continue your exercise program in a medically supervised group setting. To complement Phases II and III of this program, educational sessions will be conducted for you and your family members. Helping you understand heart disease will put you a step closer to managing it.
Our cardiac rehab program is successful, because we not only tell you what you need to change your lifestyle and exercise, we also show you. We’re with you every step of the way, showing you how. A special part of the program is the friendship and support you receive from other cardiac rehab patients.
Getting Started
You need only to ask your physician to refer you to Rehab, or you may give us a call and we will assist you in obtaining a referral. Your physician will receive regular reports about your progress. If you would like to schedule a tour of our facility, or if you have questions about your cardiac or pulmonary rehab programs, please phone 859.235.3553 weekdays between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.