Introduction:

Heart failure is a pathological and clinical state in which the heart is unable to provide blood according to peripheral metabolic requirements having a direct impact on aerobic capacity. Cardiac rehabilitation for 12 weeks has clear benefits mainly on aerobic capacity, but few studies detail such changes over the course of the intervention process.

Objective:

To determine changes in aerobic capacity and some physiological variables in patients with cardiac insufficiency, at 6 and 12 weeks after cardiac rehabilitation.

Method:

Longitudinal descriptive type study. The sample was made up of 23 patients linked to a cardiac rehabilitation program, where they performed stress testing at three times (start, weeks 6 and 12). Quantitative variables were compared in 3 moments using the repeated measurement test up to 3 tails, taking into account the homogeneity and equality of variances. The statistical significance was 0.05.

Results:

Oxygen consumption showed an increase of 3.6 ml/kg/min during rehabilitation, finding statistically significant differences in the three measurement moments but there was a greater increase between week 1 and 6 (p = 0.00) where a change of 2.2 ml/kg/min was recorded. Measurement of initial and final systolic/diastolic blood pressure showed a decrease (p < 0.05).

Conclusions:

In patients with heart failure, oxygen consumption achieved a progressive increase over 12 weeks of cardiac rehabilitation, with its largest increase seen in the first 6 weeks of intervention.

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