The Effect of Cardiac Rehabilitation on Cognitive Impairment of Patients with Heart Failure: A Systematic Review

Background: Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) as a secondary preventive measure can reduce the mortality and prevent progression of disorder in heart failure (HF). The prevalence of cognitive impairment (CI) in patients with HF ranges from 25 to 75 % and the risk for cognitive dysfunction appears to increase with increasing HF severity .Therefore, the present systematic review was conducted to assess the effect of CR program on CI in patients with HF.Materials and Methods: PubMed, SCOPUS and Web of science were searched from January 1, 1980, to November 30, 2017 with no language restriction. Initially, all published which studied the efficacy of CR in patients with HF that measured any type of cognitive function were included by 2 independent authors. All studies were critically appraised and assessed their quality based on Downs and Black scale by two independent authors.Results: initially 118 published article reviewed that 8 of them included to study finally. Most studies with high-quality evidence showed CI in HF patients are in part reversible by non-pharmacological therapy and CR was associated with acute (12 weeks) and long-term (12 months) improvements in multiple cognitive domains.Conclusion: It seems CR can improve CI in patients with HF which can be could help physicians to determine patients’ risk profile and to predict the response to CR in HF. Further randomized controlled trials are needed to assess efficacy of CR

Keywords:

cardiac rehabilitation , heart failure , cognitive impairment , review