Cardiac Rehabilitation Services

Our goal is to help our patients achieve their health and fitness goals. We take into account the limitations from each patient’s unique cardiovascular disease and then prescribe an individualized cardiac rehabilitation program in coordination with the patient’s primary medical and surgical teams.

Eligible patients for our cardiac rehabilitation program include:

• Congenital heart disease including Tetralogy of Fallot and Fontan patients
• Cardiomyopathy including hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM)
• Cancer survivors with cardiomyopathy/heart failure
• Coronary artery disease due to Kawasaki disease
• Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH)
• After implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) placement
• Before and/or after heart transplant
• Before and/or after other cardiac surgery
• Before and/or after Cath-based procedure
• Before and/or after bariatric surgery
• Obesity with left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and/or dysfunction
• Severe neurocardiogenic (a.k.a. vasovagal) syncope
• Other patients who may benefit from supervised exercise therapy and active, healthy lifestyle coaching

We provide services in each of the following settings:

• Phase I:
  Phase I focuses on building strength and endurance during your hospital stay before and/or after a cardiac procedure. Exercise training prior to a cardiac procedure can make the patient healthier going into the procedure and may help the patient heal faster afterward. Research also shows that exercise after a cardiac procedure promotes physical and psychological healing. This is a great time to get acquainted with our team and learn what our Cardiac Rehabilitation Program is all about.
• Phase II:
  Phase II is an outpatient program that is focused on improving strength, aerobic capacity, and flexibility. Typically, patients are seen 2-3 times a week for 36 sessions lasting up to 12 weeks. During the one hour exercise sessions at our state-of-the-art Cardiac Rehabilitation Suite, we provide exercises in a fun and safe environment to keep patients motivated. Our facility has many different types of aerobic and strengthening equipment to support different levels of physical needs. Continuous electrocardiographic (ECG) monitoring is provided along with medical supervision and on-site emergency equipment.
• Phase III:
  The Heart Institute offers a Phase III maintenance and continued education program. Research shows that gains made in Phase II last longer the patient continues to exercise and make heart-healthy choices at home. We will provide safe and appropriate parameters for an exercise routine that can be continued at home. Education on all components of heart healthy living are also provided.

Because we know that many of our patients lead busy lives and live far from Cincinnati, we are piloting a Home-based Program that uses a smartphone/tablet (Mac or Android) app to interact with our team.

The app, called Movin Rehab, is easy to use and designed to help the patient achieve their goals in an affordable and convenient way. The patient will need to travel to the Cardiac Rehabilitation Suite (Burnet Campus) for a least a baseline visit and three monthly check-ins with assessments. In the future, we plan to scale-up this component of our Cardiac Rehabilitation Program to serve more patients in our growing referral area.