Oxygen Uptake Kinetics in Older Patients Receiving Postacute Cardiac Rehabilitation

ABSTRACT Molino-Lova R, Vannetti F, Pasquini G, Paperini A, Zipoli R, Polcaro P, Petrilli M,Cecchi F, Macchi C: Oxygen uptake kinetics in older patients receiving postacutecardiac rehabilitation: Effects of low-intensity aerobic training. Am J Phys MedRehabil 2010;89:953-960. Objective: Older patients who receive postacute cardiac rehabilitationimprove their physical performance in terms of distance walked at the6-min walk test. However, the slower and more complicated recovery,along with age-related chronic comorbidities, remarkably limits the inten-sity of aerobic training, which actually represents the care of cardiacrehabilitation. The aim of this study was to verify whether postacutecardiac rehabilitation also improves the cardiovascular adjustment toexercise, despite low-intensity aerobic training.Design: Using a portable gas analyzer, we assessed the O2 uptakekinetics during the 6-min walk test at the beginning and at the end of therehabilitation in 84 patients aged 65 yrs and above.Results: Ali patients significantly improved the distance walked at the6-min walk test. The comparison of the lime constants of O2 uptakekinetics showed that 40% of patients also significantly improved thehemodynamic response to exercise. This improvement was independentlyassociated with the report of sedentary lifestyle or low-intensity physicalactivity in the year before surgery and with longer lime constants beforephysical training.Conclusions: Low-intensity aerobic training improves the cardiovas-cular adjustment to exercise selectively in patients with physical decondi-tioning. This confirms the notion that elderly frail patients are those whobenefit most tram cardiac rehabilitation.