Abstract

Obesity is a known and commonly encountered risk factor for the development of cardiac diseases. Patients with cardiac diseases who also have obesity do not benefit optimally from standard cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs. Exercises performed during CR are not the best fit for patients with obesity and counselling sessions often do not address their specific needs. OPTICARE XL is the first large multicentre randomised controlled trial to investigate the added value of a dedicated one-year CR program specifically designed for patients with obesity and integrated in daily practice. The short-term effects on body weight and physical activity were promising and patients with obesity experienced the program as highly desirable. However, the OPTICARE XL CR program did not show long-term added value compared with standard CR on health-related quality of life, psychosocial well-being, body weight, physical activity and physical fitness, nor on costs. The current article offers an overview of the background of this trial and discusses the most important results of the OPTICARE XL trial and the reasons behind the unanticipated long-term outcomes. Furthermore, it offers recommendations for future research and how to redesign the OPTICARE XL CR program to expand the short-term results.

Details

Title
Cardiac rehabilitation for patients with obesity: lessons learned from the OPTICARE XL trial
Author
den Uijl, Iris 1 ; Sunamura, Madoka 2 ; Brouwers, Rutger M. W. 3 ; Stam, Henk J. 4 ; Boersma, Eric 5 ; van den Berg-Emons, Rita J. G. 4 ; ter Hoeve, Nienke 1 

 Erasmus University Medical Centre, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (GRID:grid.5645.2) (ISNI:0000 0004 0459 992X); Capri Cardiac Rehabilitation, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (GRID:grid.5645.2) 
 Capri Cardiac Rehabilitation, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (GRID:grid.5645.2) 
 Máxima Medical Centre, Department of Cardiology, Eindhoven/Veldhoven, The Netherlands (GRID:grid.414711.6) (ISNI:0000 0004 0477 4812) 
 Erasmus University Medical Centre, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (GRID:grid.5645.2) (ISNI:0000 0004 0459 992X) 
 Erasmus University Medical Centre, Department of Cardiology, Thoraxcenter, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (GRID:grid.5645.2) (ISNI:0000 0004 0459 992X) 
Pages
14-22
Publication year
2024
Publication date
Jan 2024
Publisher
Springer Nature B.V.
ISSN
15685888
e-ISSN
18766250
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2912899719
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2023. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.