Cardiac Rehabilitation
When you live with a heart condition in LA County, choose the cardiac rehabilitation program at PIH Health to improve your quality of life.
What’s Cardiac Rehabilitation?
Cardiac rehabilitation is an exercise and education program to improve heart health. Cardiac rehabilitation can help you:
- Improve your overall health
- Increase your level of activity, endurance and strength
- Live better with a chronic condition like congestive heart failure (CHF), stable angina or coronary artery disease
- Manage your heart condition
- Reduce heart disease risk factors
Am I Eligible for Cardiac Rehabilitation?
Your doctor may recommend cardiac rehab after a heart attack, a heart-related procedure or heart surgery.
Your Cardiac Rehab Team
You’ll work with a comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation team to help reduce your risk of future problems with your heart or blood vessels. Our goal is to get you back to the life you love—and 99% of our participants rate us as excellent.
Our care team includes professionals from many specialties. In addition to your primary care doctor and your heart doctor (cardiologist) who refer you to us, your rehab team may include our:
- Cardiac rehab nurse – Assists and treats people with cardiovascular disease to lower the risk of future problems
- Electrocardiogram (EKG) and telemetry monitor technician – Reviews your heart rhythms to monitor your heart activity and health
- Exercise specialist (exercise physiologist) – Develops fitness program to improve overall health and heart function
- Medical social worker – Connects you with community resources and provides counseling and support
- Pharmacist – Monitors and prescribes medication to manage your heart condition
- Registered dietitian – Provides guidance on eating for a healthy heart and healthy weight
Individualized Rehabilitation Plan
Get a personalized treatment plan to fit your needs, goals, and preferences. Your plan may include:
- Cardiovascular exercise three days a week with supervision to keep your heart at a safe activity level
- Peripheral artery disease (PAD) program develops a specific exercise plan that includes treadmills and stationery bikes to improve circulation in your legs to help you walk greater distances
- Nutrition counseling with a registered dietitian (RD) to help you learn to prepare heart-healthy foods
- Social services to support you emotionally and help you better handle the stresses of daily living
- Education and information on:
- Creating an exercise program to help you maintain and improve your health
- Identifying and managing your risk factors for heart disease
- Managing your heart medications safely and effectively
- Quitting smoking
What to Expect
Benefit from a custom care plan, ongoing support and education at each stage of cardiac rehabilitation at PIH Health.
Phase I
Your rehab activities start right after heart while you’re still in the hospital. Rely on your care team to get you back home as quickly and safely as possible. They’ll review your risk factors, medications and exercise plan with you.
Phase II
Once you’re out of the hospital, you’ll take part in a 12-week program that meets for an hour three times each week at a PIH Health cardiac rehabilitation center. You’ll exercise while wearing a heart monitor to see how your heart responds. Heart monitoring helps to track your progress and make adjustments to your plan as needed.
Phase III
Phase III cardiac rehab is available on a self-pay basis for as long as you want to use it. It consists of hour-long exercise sessions up to three times a week. You’ll benefit from exercising in the same location and with the same familiar staff who worked with you before to help you maintain and improve your gains.
Ongoing Support After Rehabilitation
Access a wide range of support services and programs, including:
- Home healthcare – Assists people in their home to help improve function and independence
- Coumadin clinic – Monitors your health if you take blood-thinning medication
- Congestive heart failure (CHF) clinic – Helps people with CHF understand their condition and how to manage their health
- Pacemaker clinic – Evaluates the function of your pacemaker
- Automatic implantable cardiac/cardioverter defibrillator (AICD) clinic – Checks the function of your AICD
