Cardiac rehabilitation outcome after transcatheter aortic valve implantation.

Patients with severe aortic stenosis are increasingly treated with transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) as a safer option to surgical aortic valve replacement (sAVR).  Similar to many other heart diseases, after the specific therapeutic intervention patients are eligible for cardiac rehabilitation (CR) for the purpose of functional recovery. Thus far, CR after both sAVR and TAVI has been used to a limited extent, as shown by the availability of only two meta-analyses including 5 studies and 6 studies, respectively.

Training prescription in patients on beta-blockers: percentage peak exercise methods or self-regulation?

Background: Exercise prescription based on percentage of peak exercise variables has many limitations in patients taking beta-blockers. The aim of this study was to evaluate efficacy and safety of a training protocol based on the rating of perceived exercise (RPE) in patients taking beta-blockers after cardiac surgical revascularization.

Design And Methods: 71 patients treated with beta-blockers after recent coronary artery bypass grafting were randomly allocated to two different programmes with training intensity adjusted to keep heart rate close to first ventilatory threshold (36 subjects, AeT group) or RPE between grades 4 and 5 of 10-point category-ratio BORG scale (35 subjects, RPE group).