Authors
- Irena Kužet Mioković — Special Hospital for Medical Rehabilitation of the Heart and Lung Diseases and Rheumatism “Thalassotherapia Opatija”, Opatija, Croatia — ORCID: 0000-0003-4990-6201
- Marica Komosar-Cvetković — Special Hospital for Medical Rehabilitation of the Heart and Lung Diseases and Rheumatism “Thalassotherapia Opatija”, Opatija, Croatia — ORCID: 0000-0002-9539-9733
- Ivona Brajković — Special Hospital for Medical Rehabilitation of the Heart and Lung Diseases and Rheumatism “Thalassotherapia Opatija”, Opatija, Croatia — ORCID: 0000-0002-1420-5918
- Romina Mrakovčić — Special Hospital for Medical Rehabilitation of the Heart and Lung Diseases and Rheumatism “Thalassotherapia Opatija”, Opatija, Croatia — ORCID: 0000-0001-8339-3257
- Anamarija Velčić Tasić — Special Hospital for Medical Rehabilitation of the Heart and Lung Diseases and Rheumatism “Thalassotherapia Opatija”, Opatija, Croatia — ORCID: 0000-0003-3416-8656
- Kristina Skroče — University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia — ORCID: 0000-0003-0379-5235
Keywords
quality of life, health, myocardial infarction, high intensity interval training
DOI
https://doi.org/10.15836/ccar2022.335Full Text
Introduction : Acute myocardial infarctions (AMI) are one of the leading causes of death in the developed world and patients experience numerous physical symptoms including fatigue, dyspnea, or chest pain which affect their physical, emotional, and social well-being with significant impairment in Quality of Life (QoL). The aim was to access the improvement of QoL, if any, throughout the 12 weeks of individually-prescribed high intensity interval training (HIIT) training. Patients and Methods :16 ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) patients (age 58 ± 10 years; height 177 ± 9 cm; weight 86.8 ± 15.4 kg; VO 2 max 19 ± 5.3 ml min-1kg-1) underwent 12 weeks of supervised cycling HIIT (4x4 min at 85-95% of HRmax) 3 times per week. A questionnaire including Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36) was assessed prior to, at 4th, 8th and post 12 weeks of HIIT training. The Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors Knowledge Level (CARRF-KL) Scale was used prior to the training intervention to assess patient’s knowledge on CVD. Results : Patients demonstrated statistically significant improvements (P<0.005) in physical functioning (PF), physical role functioning (RP), emotional role functioning (RE), vitality (VT), mental health (MH),social role functioning (SF),bodily pain (BP), general health perceptions (GH) already after 4 weeks of training and this trend was maintained until the end of the 12-week block. In line with SF-36 findings, Peak VO 2 increased significantly by 8% (19.2 ± 5.1 vs 20.8 ± 5.0 mil min-1 kg-1,P=.002) across the group already after 4 weeks of training. The absolute improvement in VO 2 peak at the end of the 12-week training was 32% (19.2 ± 5.1 vs 25.5 ± 4.9 mil min-1 kg-1, P<.001). Conclusion : Patients showed a low level of initial CVD-knowledge on the CARRF-KL scale. Regardless of that, significant improvements in patient-reported health status are in line with changes in functional capacity. We recommend that the rehabilitation intervention for the STEMI and NSTEMI patients include an exercise program aimed at improving functional capacity ( 1 ).