COVID-19 and cardiac rehabilitation

The COVID-19 pandemic is arguably one of the greatest public health challenges of our time, however, cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the most common global cause of morbidity and mortality with over 18 million deaths per year. Understandably, hospitals have postponed non-critical services so that healthcare professionals can be deployed to areas dealing with patients who have the COVID-19 virus. However, there remains an ongoing need to assess, support and rehabilitate those who have CVD or are newly diagnosed with it to prevent the significant risk of unintended, yet significant consequences in the long-term. The consequence of withdrawing or offering only minimal cardiac rehabilitation services is that there is likely to be an increase of 30% of unplanned hospital admissions of CVD patients for those eligible resulting in substantially reduced health-related quality of life, compromised mental health, and decreased daily activity/functional ability.