Whether you’ve had a heart attack or you see a cardiologist for an ongoing (chronic) heart condition, you can benefit from the Cardiac Prevention and Rehabilitation Program at the University of Miami Health System.

We can help you improve your physical function, reduce your pain, and improve your overall well-being by:

• Helping you become more independent by teaching you self-management strategies for your heart condition
• Reducing heart disease symptoms or complications
• Stabilizing or reversing atherosclerosis, a narrowing of your blood vessel walls caused by plaque (a fatty substance) buildup
• Working with you to prevent hospitalizations related to heart disease

Your cardiac rehabilitation team is led by a doctor who specializes in physical medicine and rehabilitation, called a physiatrist. Your rehabilitation team works with your primary care doctor, cardiologist, and other specialists to give you complete care. Your team may also include a:

• Case manager
• Chaplain
• Dietitian
• Occupational therapist
• Oncologist
• Physical therapist
• Psychologist or psychiatrist
• Recreational therapist
• Rehabilitation nurse
• Social worker
• Vocational (career) counselor

Research has shown that cardiac rehabilitation programs can benefit you in the following ways:

• Help you stop smoking
• Improve your mental and social well-being and reduce stress
• Minimize heart disease symptoms
• Prevent heart disease-related death
• Reduce blood cholesterol levels

Who is a Candidate?

If you have one of the following conditions or you’ve undergone one of these procedures, our Cardiac Prevention and Rehabilitation Program may benefit you:

• Angina pectoris: chest pain or discomfort due to heart disease
• Arrhythmias: an abnormal rate or rhythm of your heartbeat
• Balloon angioplasty: a procedure that opens narrowed or blocked blood vessels that supply blood to your heart (coronary arteries)
• Congenital heart disease: a heart condition you’re born with
• Heart attack (myocardial infarction): damage or death to part of your heart muscle caused by a lack of blood supply to your heart
• Heart failure: condition in which your heart muscle doesn’t pump blood as well as it should
• Heart transplantation: procedure in which another person’s heart is transplanted into your body
• Open heart surgery: procedure in which the chest is cut open to operate on the muscles, valves, or arteries of the heart
• Pacemaker placement: implanted device that helps your heart keep normal rhythm
• Rheumatic heart disease: a complication of rheumatic fever that damages your heart valves
• Stent placement: a procedure that places a small, mesh tube (stent) in a narrowed or blocked coronary artery to hold it open and improve blood flow

What to Expect

We customize your cardiac prevention and rehabilitation program to help you meet goals that are important to you. Your program may include one or more approaches, such as:

• Assistance with activities of daily living to help you maintain your independence, such as eating, dressing, bathing, toileting, handwriting, cooking, and basic housekeeping
• Guided exercise to help you build fitness and improve endurance
• Medication management to help reduce any heart disease symptoms or complications and prevent hospitalizations
• Nutritional counseling
• Patient and family education and counseling
• Smoking cessation assistance
• Stress, anxiety, and depression management
• Vocational (career) counseling

Why Choose UHealth?

World-class care in an academic health center. As a research and teaching institution, we treat children and adults with proven, leading-edge procedures based on clinical studies performed at the Miller School of Medicine. Our doctors, residents, nurses, and therapists work together to improve health care.