Rehabilitation

Cardiac rehabilitation department is one of the most important wards of the center that helps the patients to have a healthy lifestyle, including exercise, improving nutritional habits, reducing emotional stress, etc. The rehabilitation department occupies spacious rooms with a soothing environment and advanced equipment.

The treatment plan in cardiac rehabilitation ward includes phase I and phase II. The long-term treatment including phase III and IV and can be done out of the hospital too. In phase I the patients refer for the essential consultancy on the last day of admission. Most of the patients have ischemic heart disease, who have underwent coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) or the patients with heart failure. The other groups of the patients include heart transplant, valvular disease and peripheral vascular diseases, etc. In phase I, a nurse, a psychologist, and a nutritionist do the initial consultancy to improve their eating habits, learn to control their emotional stress, manage depression and anxiety and also having a physical activity. At this time the patients referred to the doctor for reevaluating their physical health, doing an exercise test and plan for the exercise at hospital. Also, paraclinical tests and evaluations are ordered if necessary.

Another treatment is done in cardiac rehabilitation ward, is EECP (Enhanced External Counter pulsation). This is a good option for the patients with ischemic heart disease who are not good candidates for CABG or PCI.

EECP contains 35 sessions and the main aim is stimulating to recruit collateral vessels in the ischemic hearts. Before initiating the treatment, essential evaluation including color Doppler sonography of the lower limbs (to rule out deep venous thrombosis) and abdominal sonography to rule out aortic aneurysm should be done. With this treatment, the symptoms of the patients resolve and remains for 3 to 5 years and it can be repeated if needed. The patients with Pace maker, ICD (implantable cardioverter-defibrillator) or irregular rhythms are not good candidates for EECP.