Health Topic

Cardiac Rehabilitation

Cardiac rehabilitation (rehab) is a program to help you get better after heart problems or heart surgery. Learn what it includes and how it can help.

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Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.

About Cardiac Rehabilitation

Cardiac rehabilitation (rehab) is a medically supervised program to help people who have:

  • A heart attack
  • Angioplasty or coronary artery bypass grafting for coronary heart disease
  • A heart valve repair or replacement
  • A heart transplant or a lung transplant
  • Angina
  • Heart failure

The goal is to help you return to an active life, and to reduce the risk of further heart problems. A team of specialists will create a plan for you that includes exercise training, education on heart healthy living, and counseling to reduce stress. You will learn how to reduce your risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, depression, and diabetes. Being overweight, having obesity, smoking, and not exercising are other risk factors.

It sits within Blood, Heart and Circulation and Surgery and Rehabilitation.

The lead U.S. institute for this subject is the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.

Research on Cardiac Rehabilitation

968 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.

What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.

Research currently under way

Research already completed

Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.

Where to read more

Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.

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Statistics and Research

Clinical Trials

Medical subject headings

Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Cardiac Rehabilitation. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.

This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for Cardiac Rehabilitation, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.