Yoga-based rehab therapy safe, beneficial for cardiac patients

New Delhi: A yoga-based rehabilitation programme in patients with heart attack is as safe and beneficial as the conventional cardiac rehabilitation therapy, said a new study.

The study compared the effectiveness of Yoga based Cardiac Rehabilitation (Yoga-CaRe) with enhanced standard care (ESC) in patients with a heart attack on clinical outcomes like death, recurrent heart attacks, stroke, heart-related emergency hospital admissions, and quality of life, said Dr Ambuj Roy, professor of Cardiology at the AIIMS.

It found that Yoga-CaRe has the potential to be an alternative to conventional cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programmes and address the unmet needs of CR for patients in India and other countries.

The results of the five-year study, funded by the Indian Council for Medical Research and Medical Research Council (UK), were presented in the Am-erican Heart Association Scientific Session in Chicago on Saturday.

The study was conducted in 24 centres in India and covered close to 4,000 patients at or immediately after discharge following a heart attack.

The patients were randomised to undergo a structured YogaCaRe programme comprising meditation, breathing exercises and selected heart-friendly yoga poses in addition to lifestyle advice. The control group received usual lifestyle advice.

Among those patients who attended at least 10 or of more of the planned 13 yoga training sessions, the Yoga-CaRe programme was efficacious in improving clinical outcomes by reducing death and lowering hospitalisations suggesting a potential dose-response relationship.

The Yoga-CaRe programme is an amalgamation of generic yoga and lifestyle practices influenced by both yogic philosophies and also modern scientific evidence through a systematic process. The programme is designed to be accepted by people of all religions/sects and is safe for the patients.

Prof Prabhakaran, vice-president of the Public Health Foundation of India and principal investigator of the study, said the prevalence of ischemic heart disease in India has increased by over 50 per cent and in terms of absolute numbers, has increased from 10 million in 1990 to 24 million in 2016.

“The Yoga-CaRe Trial, the largest trial on yoga as well as cardiac rehabilitation, has shown the potential of yoga to be an alternative to the conventional CR programmes and address the unmet needs of cardiac rehabilitation for patients in low-and middle-income countries. It is safe, relatively inexpensive, does not need an elaborate infrastructure, culturally acceptable and improves quality of life,” Prof Prabhakaran said.