Cardiac Rehabilitation: A Comprehensive Review

Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is a commonly used treatment for men and women with cardiovasculardisease. To date, no single study has conclusively demonstrated a comprehensive benefit of CR.Numerous individual studies, however, have demonstrated beneficial effects such as improved riskfactorprofile, slower disease progression, decreased morbidity, and decreased mortality. This paper willreview the evidence for the use of CR and discuss the implications and limitations of these studies. Thesafety, relevance to special populations, challenges, and future directions of CR will also be reviewed.