Evaluation of management of Moroccan women in cardiac rehabilitation

Introduction Cardiac rehabilitation consists of measures that allow patients to recover their functional capacity through physical exercise and therapeutic education. The aim of our study is to evaluate the management of Moroccan Women compared to Men in cardiac rehabilitation. Materials and methods It's a prospective study included 156 patients, divided in 2 groups (group 1: 30 women and group 2: 126 men) admitted in Cardiac Rehabilitation Unit, Cardiology Centre, Mohammed V Military Hospital, Rabat, Morocco. All of them had clinical evaluation, echocardiography and cardio respiratory capacities evaluation. Results The average age of patients was (group 1: 59, 7 ± 7, 2 years and group 2: 57, 68 ± 6,7 years), they have more than three cardiovascular risk factors dominated by hypertension in group 1 and smoking in group 2, coronary artery disease is the most frequent etiology, women are overweight than men (BMI: 29,7 ± 4,3 kg/m2 in group 1 and 27,6 ± 3,2 kg/m2 in group 2). After 20 sessions of exercise training, therapeutic education and diet program, women have significantly lose weight (from 29,7 ± 4,3 kg/m2 to 26,8 ± 3,4 kg/m2) compared to men (from 27,6± 3,2 kg/m2 to 26,1 ± 2,6 kg/m2, two groups are significantly improve the maximal work load (from 87,6 ± 21,9 watt to 112,.2 ± 32,8 watt in group 1 and from 89,6 ± 23,9 watt to 116,.2 ± 33,8 watt in group 2) and VO2max (from 21,1 ± 4,9 ml/kg/min to 25,7 ± 5,7 ml/kg/min in group 1 and from 23,1 ± 4,9 ml/kg/min to 26,7 ± 6,7 ml/kg/min in group 2). Conclusion This study demonstrated that exercise training is clearly benefit for both men and women to improve their exercise capacities and quality of life.