Nontraditional cardiac rehabilitation in Korean patients with coronary artery disease

Purpose: This pilot investigation sought to compare outcomes including depression, anxiety, stress, mindful awareness, and exercise capacity between exercise-focused cardiac rehabilitation (ECR) and meditation-focused cardiac rehabilitation (MCR) programs for patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) who had percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Design: A nonrandomized pretest-posttest design was employed. Methods: Two different interventions (ECR vs. MCR) were implemented with participants of each group for 12 weeks. Questionnaires assessing depression, anxiety, stress, and mindful awareness and measures of peak VO₂ were completed before and after the 12-week interventions. Findings: Thirteen patients completed the cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs. Meditation-focused cardiac rehabilitation was associated with significantly greater reductions in depression as compared to ECR; there were no significant differences between the two groups on other outcomes. Conclusions: The MCR program has similar effects to improve the physical and psychological outcomes, compared with the ECR program. Clinical Relevance: There is potential for patients with CAD to participate in and benefit fromnontraditional CR programs, and such CR could play a role in secondary prevention of CAD.