Nurses’ Support for Patients Undergoing Cardiac Rehabilitation

As a disease management program, comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation is needed during hospital stay, and should also be continued after patients are discharged from the hospital and return to society. Cardiac rehabilitation is composed of not only exercise therapy but also patient education and counseling. Nurses’ skills of supporting self-management in cardiac rehabilitation are to assess the individual risks of the patients and to use the assessment for the management of safe rehabilitation; for patient education, to assess correctly the status of self-management; and, for counseling, to show interest in patients, consider how they are feeling, and provide them with mental support. Collaborating with different health professionals and providing continuous comprehensive support, as well as playing the role of coordinator for these, are also important parts of nurses’ responsibilities in cardiac rehabilitation.