Page 89 - Petelin, Ana, ur. 2024. Zdravje delovno aktivnih in starejših odraslih / Health of Working-Age and Older Adults. Zbornik povzetkov z recenzijo ▪︎ Book of Abstracts. Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem/University of Primorska Press

The importance of cardiac rehabilitation after a heart attack:
treatment of the working and elderly population

Alenka Cergol, Nina Zlatič
Izola General Hospital, Izola, Slovenia

Background and purpose: Heart attack is an important cause of death and disability
worldwide, with a significant impact on the working population. Cardiac rehabilita-
tion represents a key phase of recovery after a heart attack, as it helps patients with
physical, psychological and social reintegration and reduces the risk of repeated cardi-
ac events. A heart attack represents an important public health challenge, especially
among the working population, as it can cause prolonged absence from work or even
permanent disability. Cardiac rehabilitation is key to restoring functionality and qual-
ity of life after a heart attack and is an effective means of secondary prevention. This
article presents the course of cardiac rehabilitation, discusses the importance for the
working population, emphasizes its impact for secondary prevention and describes
the results.
Content presentation: Based on the professional cooperation of the University Clini-
cal Center Ljubljana (hereafter UKC Ljubljana) with the Institute for Health Insurance
of Slovenia (hereafter ZZZS), a new health program “Outpatient Cardiac Rehabilita-
tion” was introduced in 2017. The introduction of the new program followed the pro-
gress of medicine and pharmacotherapy, especially in the field of treatment of coro-
nary patients, which instead of inpatient treatment within the framework of a natural
spa requires extended outpatient rehabilitation of the patient after successfully com-
pleted acute treatment of a heart attack in the hospital. The contractors were involved
in the implementation of the new program gradually, namely, first of all, UKC Ljubljana
as a research institution responsible for creating professional orientations in this field.
Afterwards, the implementation of this new program was successfully implemented preventiva in rehabilitacija ... | prevention and rehabilitation ...
by other institutions, including the Izola General Hospital (hereafter SBI). In order to
monitor, record and account for the services provided within the framework of the
new program, ZZZS in cooperation with UKC Ljubljana, also defined a new list of am-
bulatory cardiac rehabilitation services and a new calculation for planning and financ-
ing the new team, which consists of 5.30 workers (from hours), of which 1.20 doctor
specialist (from hours), 1.50 graduate or senior nurse (from hours) and 1.50 graduate
physiotherapist (from hours). At SBI, we perform outpatient rehabilitation with mon-
itor control of patients who have just suffered a heart attack. Rehabilitation is carried
out with the help of ECG and includes warm-up with active and breathing exercises.
Patients exercise on an ergocyclometer for 40 minutes of interval training. We can al-
so include 20 minutes of continuous
training on the treadmill.
Conclusions: Cardiac rehabilitation after a heart attack is crucial for the working pop-
ulation and represents an important part of secondary prevention. Research shows
that performing cardiac rehabilitation is an effective secondary prevention treatment.
Keywords: rehabilitation, cardiology, heart attack

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