Ogasawara R, Ueshima K, Sato S, Saito K, Sotokubo E, Saito M, Kobayashi N, Taniguchi Y, Kamata J, Kawazoe K, Hiramori K
Division of Cardiac Rehabilitation, Memorial Heart Center, Iwate Medical University, Morioka, Japan.
Kyobu Geka. 2003 Sep;56(10):836-40.
We investigated the incidence and the varieties of arrhythmia during exercise training in patients who underwent cardiac surgery. Subjects were 1293 patients who underwent cardiac surgery and enrolled our cardiac rehabilitation program. According to the charts and cardiac rehabilitation records, we evaluated the incidence and the varieties of arrhythmia provoked by exercise training in patients after cardiac surgery retrospectively. The arrhythmias related to the exercise training were provoked in 12 times, and the incidence was only 0.09% (12/13646). Atrial fibrillation was the most common arrhythmia, and the incidence was 41.6% (5/12) in these patients. Moreover, these arrhythmias occurred within 2 weeks after surgery. Although most patients recovered to the sinus rhythm spontaneously, 3 patients needed medical treatment or cardioversion. We concluded that the arrhythmia provoked by exercise training in patients after cardiac surgery were rare, non-fatal, and common in the early recovery phase after surgery. However, the supervised exercise training was required in those patients, particularly in early recovery phase of cardiac surgery.