Heart Rehabilitation An Essential Treatment For Those With Heart Problems

By Elaine Roles

Heart rehabilitation offers an essential lifeline for those living with heart problems. For many people having a heart attack feels like it is the end of the world and that having an active life is beyond them, but this could not be further from the truth. Many find that having a heart attack is an terrible shock, so often coming out of the blue. Many feel that they were too young, too fit or active to have a heart attack. This life changing event takes time to come to terms with and the person will need to make many necessary changes to their way of living.

Nowadays those with heart problems are offered heart rehabilitation which is a treatment programme to help heart patients and those with coronary heart disease manage their condition, improve their health and recover their quality of life after a cardiac event, such as after heart bypass, heart attack, stents or heart surgery. Taking part in a cardiac rehabilitation program is a wonderful experience and helps to educate those with heart problems on how they can manage their condition to make a full recovery.

You should be aware that you cannot increase the rate of recovery and that by doing too much you will find that the next day you are so exhausted that you need to rest. It is much better to pace yourself and take your time, start with a short walk and gradually build up the time you are walking for. This should be done every day but remember that you are the best expert on you, there is plenty of time, you do not need to rush. Within a short space of time you will be back to feeling normal again and you will find that life becomes much more settled.

For those who have had a cardiac event one of the most common statements said is “I just want to get back to feeling normal again”. Having the opportunity to talk to specialist nurses and cardiac exercise specialists on a one to one basis provides the heart patient with encouragement, support and motivation to make the necessary lifestyle changes to regain control again.

Taking time to look at lifestyle with the help of the cardiac rehabilitation team, heart patients are helped to identify risk factors that are having an adverse affect on their health, and which brought them to this point in time.

There are risk factors which increase the risk of having further heart problems and some people have a lot of these risk factors while others have none. Some risk factors we cannot change, such as whether we are male or female, our family history and the colour of our skin.

Other risk factors are modifiable, in other words changeable, and by making and continuing to make lifestyle changes, these will bring down the risk of future health problems. It is also worth noting that some of these risk factors also apply to other health problems such as diabetes and some cancers. The modifiable risk factors are:-

. Smoking

. High cholesterol levels

. High blood pressure

. Overweight

. Inactivity

. Diabetes – having poor control

. Waist measurement – females 31.5 inches or less, males 37 inches or less

. Alcohol – The current Government guidelines males 21 units and for females 14 units per week with at least two days per week alcohol free.

The British Heart Foundation have done some research and found that many people with heart problems are not being offered cardiac rehabilitation. They have also found that those who have had stents fitted feel that they do not need to take part in a heart rehabilitation program as they are now “cured”.

Coronary heart disease causes the coronary arteries to become blocked with plaque, and this then causes chest pain and shortness of breath. Having a stent placed into the coronary artery opens it up and allows the heart to get a good supply of oxygen. But Coronary heart disease is a progressive disease which if not halted will return, so how can this disease be halted?

Attending a heart rehabilitation program to learn what the specific risk facts are is the best place to start. For those with heart problems this can be the difference between making a moderate recovery or an amazing recovery.

Patients with heart problems should take full advantage of a heart rehabilitation program. It may feel that having heart problems is the end of the world but this is not always true

If you are living with a heart condition get individual help and advice from a cardiac exercise specialist at heart rehabilitation exercise a specialist website for those with heart problems.
Go now to http:// www.heartrehabiliationexercise.com and sign up for a free training video on how to exercise safely after a cardiac event