Effectiveness and safety of exercise training and rehabilitation in elderly patients after heart valve intervention: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the effectiveness and safety of exercise rehabilitation in older adults undergoing intervention for heart valve disease.

METHOD: PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, Ovid Medline, SPORTDiscus, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang were systematically searched until January 2024. Risk-of-bias assessments were performed using the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool. A meta-analysis of the following indexes was performed using RevMan 5.4 software.

RESULTS

Nine trials involving 631 patients were ultimately included. Exercise rehabilitation significantly reduced the risk of adverse events, increased the 6-minute walk distance, improved the physical component of quality of life, and shortened the length of postoperative hospitalization. However, exercise rehabilitation did not affect all-cause mortality, left heart ejection fraction, or peak oxygen uptake.

CONCLUSIONS

Exercise rehabilitation may enhance exercise capacity, reduce the incidence of adverse events, and shorten the length of postoperative hospitalization in older adults undergoing intervention for heart valve disease.