A pilot home-based cardiac telerehabilitation program

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Tele-cardiac rehabilitation has demonstrated safety and efficacy in several clinical studies. With the outbreak of COVID-19, the centered-based CR service was totally suspended. To facilitate patients to exercise at home while being monitored. A pilot home-based cardiac tele-rehabilitation program was developed with a structured protocol at Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) and rolled out from October 2020. Objectives: 1. To minimize the impact of suspension of in-hospital CR service due to outbreak of COVID-19. 2. To evaluate the effects and develop a home-based CR program for remote rehabilitation, based on advanced technological infrastructure and complementary clinical protocols. Methodology: Target patients Low risk cardiac patients who fulfil the intake criteria, able and willing to use digital monitoring devices including blood pressure machine, smart watch and smart phone. Program design: The program will last for 12 weeks and consists of education, exercise training and relaxation training. Each consenting patient will be given a training kit containing a training log-book, informative educational leaflets and a set of QR codes to access our home-made education, exercise training & relaxation practice videos. Individual phone consultation by multidisciplinary will be scheduled once a week at the first five weeks. Patients can view the video at their own convenience, and then discuss or ask questions during phone follow-up. Individualized exercise will be prescribed according to patients' age, mobility and cardio fitness level. Patients can follow the designated video to do exercise at home. They will be instructed to measure and record their blood pressure, heart rate, and rate perceived exertion (RPE) before and after exercise. Physiotherapist will phone call patient to monitor and coach patients. Evaluation All patients will undergo a detailed face-to-face assessment at baseline and at 12-week. They are including 6-minute walk test, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, blood test for lipid profile, etc. In addition, patients will also request to fill in a set of questionnaires to measure the physical activity level, functional performance and psychological fitness. Conclusion: It believes that tele-rehabilitation is a more cost-effective model compared to center-based CR. It enables a new direction for the CR program.