The elderly are priority candidates for cardiac rehabilitation

In their article published in this issue of the Journal, 1 Marta Braga and colleagues studied a population of 731 coronary patients who completed phase 2 of a cardiac rehabilitation (CR) program in a Portuguese center between January 2009 and December 2016.They aimed to compare the gains resulting from participation in the program in older patients (aged ≥65 years), who accounted for 15.9% of the overall cohort, with those of younger patients (aged <65 years).Compared to younger patients, the older group were more likely to be male, hypertensive and diabetic and to have a greater waist circumference, while the younger group included more smokers and had higher low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and triglyceride levels on admission.Older patients were more likely to have suffered non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction and to have multivessel disease.There was no significant difference between the groups in severity of left ventricular dysfunction.Metabolic profile, functional capacity, parameters of cardiac autonomic regulation and quality of life were assessed.The authors found no significant differences between the two groups in the gains obtained and therefore concluded that older patients benefited to a similar extent to younger individuals in these four aspects.Attesting to the excellence of the program, a reduction of 2-3 cm in waist circumference was observed, which was more marked in older than in younger women (-3.5 ± 3.1% vs. -0.6 ± 6.1%, p = 0.031).This reduction was not accompanied by significant reductions in body weight, which suggests that there had been a positive change in body composition, with an increase in lean mass and decrease in fat mass.This is rarely seen, particularly in elderly age-groups, in CR pro-E-mail address: