Trust’s cardiac rehab classes put prevention and recovery at the heart of their care

Transcript

00:00Cardiac Rehab is an eight-week exercise and education program. It's delivered by our MDT,

00:07so a multidisciplinary team. We see people who have had a cardiac event, so things like heart

00:13attacks or people who have had maybe stents or bypass surgery and it's really to help them

00:19regain their confidence following one of these events. We use a mix of cardiovascular and

00:24strengthening exercise and we progress things every week in order to allow them to build

00:29up that fitness and confidence again and ultimately get them back to their usual activities.

00:34I had a pain across my shoulders. I went to the Royal and finished up there and they'd done

00:40a day test and they found two arteries, so they had two stents. With my age and all, you can't

00:48expect a lot, but keep moving, yes, but they're very, very good, very, very helpful.

00:54I didn't have any symptoms at all. I ended up, I couldn't breathe. I went to bed one night,

00:59couldn't breathe, and then I started going to cardiology and they mentioned it, so I thought,

01:05yeah, definitely, I'll go for it. It makes a big difference, big time. It's actually showed up

01:10from Echo as well. The staff for the class, I can't say anything against them.

01:17My name is Lena. I'm the Cardiac Rehab Coordinator for Lagan Valley. As part of my role is to deliver

01:24the service and the focus of the service is preventative rather than cure. The main focus

01:31of the exercise programme as well, aside from long-term management, is to ensure that they

01:36understand what is the benefits, what is moderate intensity exercise. At the end of the programme,

01:43they'll be empowered to take responsibility and manage their condition and improve their quality of life.

01:50The hardest part is walking in on the first day, really. We meet them up at the hospital for their

01:56initial assessment, so we kind of give them a lot of information beforehand, trying again,

02:01encourage them to come and see us and let them know that everyone is at different levels. We have

02:05people who have never exercised before in their lives and we have people who maybe were running

02:10marathons two weeks ago and something unfortunately has happened to their heart and they're in the

02:15position they need to come to our class.