On any given day, women are vastly outnumbered by men at cardiac rehabilitation – when they show up at all. Women who do attend while recovering from a heart attack often say they don’t like working out in the cardiac rehab gym alongside so many men – in fact, there’s usually a one-to-five ratio of women to men. To address this concern and attract more women heart attack survivors, some programs are now offering female-only cardiac rehab sessions.
This is a good thing, as we know that a cardiac rehab program can help survivors gradually improve their physical fitness, learn about nutrition, meet other heart patients, and get support to quit smoking, lose weight or make other heart-healthy lifestyle changes to improve heart health.
Depression is another factor that can keep us away from cardiac rehab. Depression often follows a heart disease diagnosis (Mayo Clinic cardiologists tell us that up to 65% of survivors suffer depression, yet fewer than 10% are appropriately diagnosed). Depression is also in general twice as likely to affect women as men. Depression interferes with how well we can stick with important lifestyle modifications following a cardiac event, as well as our willingness to even bother showing up for cardiac rehabilitation.
It turns out that a major benefit of attending and completing a cardiac rehab program after a heart attack is that symptoms of depression actually improved among women who participated in a motivationally-enhanced cardiac rehabilitation program exclusively for women, according to a presentation at November’s American Heart Association’s annual scientific meetings. (more…)
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