Is There a Role for Religion and Spirituality in Cardiac Rehabilitation?

Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is a secondary prevention intervention offered to promote cardiac recovery by reducing morbidity, mortality, and disability. As such, CR has been recognized as integral to the comprehensive care of patients with cardiovascular disease, and, in most current guidelines of cardiovascular societies globally, CR is a class I recommendation.

At first, the standard “cardiac rehabilitation” approach focused almost exclusively on supervised exercise, since many previous studies had confirmed a positive impact of regular physical activities on cardiac outcomes. However, currently, the exercise-centric model of CR has been considered outdated. As increasing evidence has shown that cardiac events affect patients not only physically, but also emotionally, socially, and spiritually, contemporary CR programs are now viewed as a multidisciplinary intervention. Among well-recognized core components such as management and control of cardiovascular risk factors, physical activity counseling, and exercise prescription, specific approaches that aim to influence favorably mental and social conditions, improving quality of life and psychological well-being, are now considered key players to cardiac recovery.

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