Integrating Individuals with Stroke into Cardiac Rehabilitation Following Traditional Stroke Rehabilitation: Promoting a Continuum of Care

Publication date: Available online 11 July 2018Source: Canadian Journal of CardiologyAuthor(s): Susan Marzolini, R. KinUnstructured AbstractIndividuals following stroke are at a high risk for a repeat stroke and for complications related to coronary artery disease. Indeed, stroke and coronary artery disease share many of the same risk factors. Unfortunately, patients become sedentary after stroke leading to cardiorespiratory deconditioning as well as muscle atrophy and weakness that leads to deterioration in metabolic, cardiorespiratory, and functional health. Access to intensive secondary prevention programs with a structured exercise component that includes both aerobic and resistance training can help to prevent and reverse these health hazards. Traditional stroke rehabilitation programs face many barriers to providing exercise programming early post-stroke, such as lack of available therapy time and short length of stay, lack of equipment for exercise and assessments, and concerns for patient safety related to cardiac status. Building a partnership between traditional stroke rehabilitation programmes and cardiac rehabilitation by operationalizing an automatic referral process has the potential to significantly impact secondary prevention of stroke and cardiovascular risk. It could also mitigate the tremendous burden on the individual and family members involved. This is an easily identified group that can achieve significant gains over multiple domains of recovery with th...
Source: Canadian Journal of Cardiology - Category: Cardiology Source Type: research