In recent years, research has demonstrated that exercise programs can benefit patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and patients with congestive heart failure (CHF). Yet many physicians do not refer such patients to any kind of exercise or rehabilitation program. Advances in Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation examines the history of how pulmonary and cardiac diseases have been treated and shows how that history tends to constrain contemporary thinking in spite of significant advances in treatment.
-Why do only a small percentage of eligible patients enroll in cardiopulmonary rehab programs?
-What percentage of patients can be helped, and in what ways?
-What are the most cost-efficient allocations of scarce financial resources for cardiac and pulmonary patients?
The contributors to this book address these questions and provide answers that are challenging and often quite surprising.
The First Québec International Symposium on Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation was held in Québec City in May 1999, bringing together experts from around the world to discuss every aspect of cardiopulmonary rehabilitation. Editors Jean Jobin, PhD, François Maltais, MD, Pierre LeBlanc, MD, and Clermont Simard, PhD, selected the most groundbreaking papers presented at the conference and expanded on several of them for this reference.
The book offers review articles and some original research. The editors' comprehensive introduction and conclusion provide an invaluable synthesis and overview of current understanding and future directions for cardiopulmonary rehabilitation.
Whether you are a clinician, a researcher, an educator, or an administrator, Advances in Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation will give you
-an understanding of how trends in cardiopulmonary rehabilitation during the past century affect current practices,
-hard data that will help you determine the best practices in cardiopulmonary rehabilitation,
-data that will enhance your ability to treat patients you may have assumed were untreatable, and
-a clear overview of recent research in cardiopulmonary rehabilitation.
Part I explains not only what has happened in the past, but how past and current practices may influence the future. Part II offers thorough scientific reviews of pharmacological treatment for CHF and COPD. Part III, offers the clearest discussion available—accompanied by extensive data—of how to decide who should be referred and who should not. Part IV discusses peripheral muscle limitations and dysfunction. Part V addresses risks and benefits for different kinds of patients, home exercise programs for COPD patients, interactions between exercise and left ventricular remodeling, and effects of temperature extremes on people with cardiovascular disease. Part VI explains how cardiopulmonary illness, as well as various rehab approaches, affect a patient's psychosocial health, and examines economic evaluations of rehab programs. Part VII deals with factors that affect quality of life and how to measure outcomes of treatment in terms of quality of life. Finally, part VIII looks to the future—what is likely to happen in the areas of technology, pharmacology, psychosocial factors, and self-help care.
This well-researched volume (more than 2,200 bibliographical references) is essential for anyone who deals with cardiac or pulmonary patients. This is the only single volume that probes the scientific, clinical, economic, and even psychosocial frontiers of cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation.
