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Exercise Tolerance Testing in a Cardiac Rehabilitation Setting: An Exploratory Study of Its Safety and Practicality for Exercise Prescription and Outcome Data Collection

An exercise test is a valuable tool that should be a part of every patient's assessment before beginning cardiac rehabilitation. We analyzed data from one exercise tolerance test used in a cardiac rehabilitation program among 103 subjects: 65 men with a mean age of 60.5 years and 38 women with a mean age of 62.4 years. Results indicated that, after cardiac rehabilitation, subjects had significant improvement in maximum metabolic equivalents (an increase of 0.9, P < 0.0001), which indicates functional capacity, and an improvement in rate of perceived exertion (decrease of 1 point; not statistically significant), which indicates more tolerance at the same work level. In general, men showed more improvement than women on the various outcome measures. Further, the testing protocol was shown to be safe. Blood pressure values did not exceed 188/86 mm Hg, and maximum heart rate did not exceed 165 beats per minute. The increased practice of exercise testing before and after cardiac rehabilitation may help expedite the development of a standardized exercise tolerance protocol to optimize patient rehabilitation and recovery and document outcomes for both individual patients and the rehabilitation program as a whole.