“Heart healthy” is a term that’s been incorporated nearly everywhere, whether you’re perusing the menu at your favorite restaurant, selecting a cereal when grocery shopping, or trying to figure out what’s the best fitness program – and for good reason. For the past century, heart disease has been the leading cause of death in the United States.
Fortunately, the survival rates for people hospitalized for heart attacks are about 90%-97%. Surviving is only the first step in your road to recovery, though. Did you know you can greatly reduce your risk of having another coronary event just by completing a recommended post-coronary event program called cardiac rehabilitation?
In this blog, the cardiac rehabilitation team at Cardio Metabolic Institute in Somerset, New Jersey, unpacks this program and explains three important benefits of cardiac rehabilitation that can literally save your life.
After suffering a coronary event, it’s natural to feel as though everything is spinning out of control. You’re not feeling like yourself. You may be confused and might feel like your body betrayed you. Just trying to understand the medical ramifications of your condition can be completely overwhelming. That’s where cardiac rehabilitation comes in.
Essentially, cardiac rehabilitation performs two key functions: It facilitates healing after a coronary event, and it provides a platform for patients to learn and embrace a heart healthy lifestyle.
Specifically, cardiac rehabilitation is a medically supervised wellness program that teams patients with a multidisciplinary team of medical and health care professionals. A typical cardiac rehabilitation program lasts about three months and concentrates on three main areas – nutrition, exercise and fitness, and stress reduction.
At Cardio Metabolic Institute, we help our patients by leveraging the works of wellness pioneer Nathan Pritikin, who also suffered from heart disease. Our Pritikin Certified Intensive Cardiac Rehab Center employs a proven heart health wellness program.
Our specially trained medical team and providers implement the Pritikin Program and the Pritikin Eating Plan to address the common risk factors for coronary events like poor diet, inadequate exercise, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and being overweight.
Our providers use diagnostic tests like blood panels and stress tests and conduct ECG-monitored fitness sessions to see the progress of your heart health. We can track your successes so you can celebrate the addition of new healthier lifestyle habits that mitigate, stabilize, and in some cases may reverse the progression of your heart condition.
Cardiac rehabilitation programs have impressive benefits.
One of the great things about cardiac rehabilitation programs is that they all start from the premise that no two heart attacks or coronary events are the same, nor do they manifest uniformly from patient to patient.
While one patient may have issues with managing a healthy weight or getting enough exercise, another may be a smoker who has problems with anxiety and finding time to eat healthy. For this reason, the cardiac rehabilitation team creates a highly personalized program dialed into your set of circumstances.
Similarly, because every patient’s journey to their coronary event is a little different, mapping out new life habits requires a multidisciplinary team of medical and health professionals including internal medicine doctors, weight loss specialists, dieticians, fitness and exercise specialists, and counselors.
This team of specialists working together not only helps you establish new healthy habits, but also supports you as your biggest cheerleaders, so you don’t have to go it alone. The team advises you, holds you accountable, monitors your progress, and supports you and your family throughout your journey to a healthier you.
While having a highly personalized treatment program and the advice and support of a team of medical professionals are amazing, perhaps the biggest payoff is reducing your risk for a future coronary event or heart attack.
Although you can’t turn back time to prevent that first coronary event, putting an honest effort into completing your cardiac rehabilitation program greatly reduces your risk of having a future coronary event or dying from one. In fact, research indicates that cardiac rehabilitation reduces mortality rates by more than 50% compared with patients who forgo cardiac rehabilitation.
If you had a heart attack or other coronary event and want to learn more about cardiac rehabilitation, call Cardio Metabolic Institute’s Somerset location today. You can also request a consultation online through this website.
