The importance of daily physical activity for improved exercise tolerance in heart failure patients with limited access to centre-based cardiac rehabilitation.

Background: Supervised cardiac rehabilitation provided at dedicated centres ameliorates exercise intolerance in patients with chronic heart failure.

Objective: To correlate the amount of physical activity outside the hospital with improved exercise tolerance in patients with limited access to centre-based programs.

Methods: Forty patients (median age 69 years) with stable heart failure due to systolic left ventricular dysfunction participated in cardiac rehabilitation once per week for five months.