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. 1983 May;33(250):285-286, 288, 290-291.

Coronary rehabilitation in the community

Hugh J N Bethell, Allen Larvan, Sally C Turner
PMCID: PMC1972763  PMID: 6308251

Abstract

Over a five-year period, 162 patients with coronary disease joined a physical rehabilitation course at a community sports centre gymnasium under the supervision of a general practitioner. One hundred and forty-seven patients had suffered a recent or old myocardial infarction and 15 suffered from angina pectoris. One hundred and thirty-eight patients (85 per cent) completed a three-month course of exercises, 16 (10 per cent) defaulted and eight (5 per cent) were withdrawn. One patient died at home during the three-month course. There were no changes in weight, blood pressure or blood fat measurements during the course but predicted maximum oxygen uptake increased by 26.9 per cent and the double product after effort (which is proportional to myocardial oxygen uptake) decreased by 13.6 per cent.

We believe that the rehabilitation of patients in community sports centres is safe and effective and should be more widely practised.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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