What is Cardiac Rehabilitation?

"What is cardiac rehabilitation?" is a frequently asked question. As we all know, heart is one of the most important body organ in humans. The heart works as a pump and it is responsible for pumping the blood throughout the body. It receives the impure blood from all parts of the body i.e. the blood with the generated waste products in the body. It cleans the blood and sends it to all other parts of the body along with oxygen. In simple words, the heart receives the impure blood, purifies it and sends the blood to different parts of the body. The heart of a healthy person beats for 72 times a minute. There are in all 4 chambers in the human heart namely left ventricle, left atrium, right ventricle and right atrium. Along with these, Pulmonary veins, Pulmonary Artery and Valves constitute the human heart. Dysfunction or stoppage of work by any of these parts result in a heart trouble and eventually a heart attack.

Some years back, if a person were to get a heart attack it was considered to be the end of his career and other activities which involved mental or physical stress. But since last 25 - 30 years, this trend is changing drastically. There is a special scientific procedure available which can recuperate the heart patients and they can return back to their normal life. This procedure is called as cardiac rehabilitation. The cardiac rehab works towards improving the ability of patient's heart to pump the blood so that the patient can handle physical and mental stress situations. There is a special type of rehab available for people, who want to ensure that there is no heart trouble in the future.

There are four stages of cardiac rehab process which are known as phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3 and Phase 4. Out of these, Phase 1 is inpatient phase i.e. in this phase the rehab experts visit the patient and treat him accordingly. The Phase 2 and Phase 3 can be followed in two ways. The patient can either choose to stay at rehab station or he can opt for outpatient cardiac rehab i.e. he has to visit the rehab center for treatment as and when asked for. The Phase four is a continuous process. Actually Phase 4 is a series of instructions which the patient has to strictly follow throughout his life. Examples of these instructions are avoiding oily and spicy food as far as possible, not getting involved in any type of physical or mental work which requires a lot of stress, keeping the blood pressure to normal, keeping diabetes under control etc. These instructions are made in order to avoid any further cardiac complications or a second attack.

The lack of information about "what is cardiac rehabilitation?" leads to many confusions and misunderstandings which results in the not so good recovery of the cardiac patient after having a heart attack. The cardiac rehab surely helps the cardiac patients to return to their normal life.