Abstract
Muscle atrophy and prolonged inactivity are associated with reduced functional capacity in patients submitted to coronary artery bypass surgery. Cardiac rehabilitation contributes to improvement in functional capacity and quality of life; however, the effect of early mobilization in these patients is poorly known.
Objective: To evaluate the effects of an early mobilization program in the functional capacity, postoperative complications and length of hospital stay in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting.
Methods: This prospective, randomized, controlled and blinded trial included 66 consecutive patients randomized into Control (CG; N=33) and Intervention groups (IG; N=33). CG was submitted to general orientations while IG performed early mobilization. The intervention was performed from the 1st to 7th postoperative day, 2xday. The functional capacity (6MWT) was evaluated before surgery and reevaluated in the 7th day and the 60th day after discharge. The length of hospital stay and pulmonary complications was also evaluated. The statistical analysis used linear mixed models and the level of significance was set at α= 5%.
Results: compared with CG, IG patients presented an improvement in the functional capacity after 7 days (respectively, 355.42±42.44 vs. 434.69 ± 48.38 meters; p<0.05) but no difference was observed at follow-up. Patients from the IG presented a reduction in hospital staying than CG (4.3 ± 1.1 vs 7.2 ± 1.6 days; p<0.05) and less pulmonary complications (24% vs. 48%; p=0.01).
Conclusion: Our results shows that early mobilization improves functional capacity and reduces pulmonary complications and hospital staying.
- Copyright ©the authors 2016
