Key result
Novel cardiac rehabilitation models show modest improvements in program utilization among women.
Why the study?
Despite well-documented benefits, cardiac rehabilitation remains underutilized, particularly among women compared to men, motivating a review of recent interventions to improve women's participation, enrollment, completion, and outcomes.
Do novel cardiac rehabilitation approaches improve enrollment, adherence, and clinical outcomes in women following acute myocardial infarction?
Do novel cardiac rehabilitation approaches improve enrollment, adherence, and clinical outcomes in women following acute myocardial infarction?
Despite the development of novel delivery methods and women-focused programs, cardiac rehabilitation remains significantly underutilized among women, highlighting the need for further research to effectively close the gender gap in secondary cardiovascular prevention.
Persistent CR sex disparities warrant targeted program redesign; leaves open which interventions best boost women's enrollment and outcomes.
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This literature review summarizes recent interventions to enhance cardiac rehabilitation (CR) participation, enrollment, and completion among women and their impact on CR outcomes. RECENT FINDING: Despite well-documented benefits of CR, CR remains underutilized nationally and globally, more so among women than men. Barriers to CR participation reported by women have not changed significantly over time. Recent approaches to improving women's enrollment, adherence, and completion have included home-based CR and telerehabilitation, incorporation of more diverse exercise modalities, and women-focused or women-only CR programming. Despite some encouraging results, most approaches have shown only modest benefits, and study interpretation is often limited by small study sizes, a lack of randomization, and highly selected samples. CR remains underutilized among women, contributing to poor health outcomes. Novel approaches to CR show promise, but further research is necessary to evaluate their impact on cardiovascular events, physiologic outcomes, and quality of life.
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Vera Bittner (2025) conducted a review in Acute Myocardial Infarction. Gender-tailored cardiac rehabilitation interventions (e.g., home-based, women-focused, alternative exercise) vs. Standard cardiac rehabilitation was evaluated. Novel approaches to cardiac rehabilitation, including home-based and women-focused programs, show promise in improving utilization among women, though most approaches have shown only modest benefits.
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