Cardiac Rehabilitation.pdf

17 Cardiac Rehabilitation: The Nutrition Counseling Component William E. Kraus and Julie D. Pruitt Key Points  Cardiac rehabilitation following a cardiac event is a comprehensive, multidisciplin- ary program that includes lifestyle counseling in nutrition, physical activity, stress management, and smoking cessation.  Special concerns that can affect implementation of cardiac rehabilitation in older patients include complicated co-morbidities; functional limitations, alterations in taste, smell, and appetite; difficulties with medication use/effectiveness; and limited financial, social, and/or caregiver resources.  Recommendations for dietary modification in cardiac rehabilitation include advice to increase the intake of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, to substitute non- hydrogenated unsaturated fats for saturated and trans-fats, and to increase intake of omega-3 fatty acids. Key Words: Cardiac event; hypertension; dyslipidemia; lipid-modified diet; sodium 17.1 CORE COMPONENTS OF CARDIAC REHABILITATION The era of cardiac rehabilitation in the United States dates back at least 30 years, when visionaries Herman Hellerstein, Andy Wallace, and Ken Cooper, among others, envisioned that a comprehensive lifestyle approach to the rehabilitation and prevention of patients having had a cardiac event would potentially yield great benefits for the individual patient and the health-care system. Until that time, the thought of vigorous exercise in the cardiac patient soon after an event was close to anathema. Since then the concept of cardiac rehabilitation has grown into a comprehensive multidisciplinary program that includes lifestyle counseling, particularly in nutrition, physical activity, stress management, and smoking cessa- tion, as core concepts within the program (1). Despite the importance of providing From: Nutrition and Health: Handbook of Clinical Nutrition and Aging, Second Edition Edited by: C. W. Bales and C. S. Ritchie, DOI 10.1007/978-1-60327-385-5_17,