Dear Colleagues,

Cardiovascular disease is a primary cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Though there has been marked progress in this field, the afflicted population group is still at greater risk of reoccurrence of events. Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) consist of several components that focus on physical activity, exercise training, risk stratification, and nutritional and psychological assessments. Apart from these, other complementary interventions have also shown promising result in cardiovascular disease. Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is linked with multiple benefits in the affected population, varying from improvement in functional capacity to overall reduction in mortality rates with improvement in quality of life.

There are concerning issues for application of CR. These include issues pertaining to optimal application of CR, delay in referral to a CR program, high attrition rate from the CR program, individually tailoring the program, a group exercise program, and questions pertaining to program design in patients with numerous comorbidities.

Current and future research may also include the evidence for cardiac rehabilitation in conditions such as heart transplant, end stage heart failure, ventricular fibrillation, cor-pulmonale, cardiovascular related sarcopenia, and malnutrition. Furthermore, in cardiac rehabilitation, interval exercises, aerobic exercise, resistance training and combined exercise including inspiratory muscle training and neuromuscular electrical stimulation already have potential positive effects although more studies are needed to explore the quality of evidence.

This Special Issue on Current Role and Future Perspectives of Cardiac Rehabilitation in Heart Disease welcomes submissions of original research, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews that explore and cement the gap between theoretical models and evidence-based practice in cardiac rehabilitation.

Prof. Snehil Dixit

Guest Editor