earticle

영어

Inpatient cardiac rehabilitation (ICR) has been commonly conducted af-ter cardiac surgery in many countries, and has been reported a lots of results. However, until now, there is inadequacy of data on the status of ICR in Korea. This study described the current status of exercise thera-py in ICR that is performed after cardiac surgery in Korean hospitals. Questionnaires modified by previous studies were sent to the depart-ments of thoracic surgery of 10 hospitals in Korea. Nine replies (re-sponse rate 90%) were received. Eight nurses and one physiotherapist completed the questionnaire. Most of the education on wards after cardiac surgery was conducted by nurses. On postoperative day 1, four sites performed sitting on the edge of bed, sit to stand, up to chair, and walking in the ward. Only one site performed that exercise on postoper-ative day 2. One activity (stairs up and down) was performed on differ-ent days at only two sites. Patients received education preoperatively and predischarge for preventing complications and reducing muscle weakness through physical inactivity. The results of the study demon-strate that there are small variations in the general care provided by nurses after cardiac surgery. Based on the results of this research, we recommended that exercise therapy programs have to conduct by ex-ercise specialists like exercise physiologists or physiotherapists for pa-tients in hospitalization period.