Telerehabilitation matches traditional cardiac rehab for exercise capacity after heart surgery

Participants using telerehabilitation also showed better adherence to physical activity and dietary recommendations, and reported improvements in selected quality-of-life and psychological outcomes. However, cardiovascular risk factors such as blood pressure, BMI, waist-hip ratio, lipid profile, blood glucose, and smoking cessation improved in both groups equally—there were no significant differences between telerehabilitation and traditional rehabilitation on these markers. The authors noted that effect sizes varied depending on what the telerehabilitation programs were compared against, and cautioned that heterogeneity in the comparison interventions limits the strength of conclusions.

The review's most striking finding is the superiority of telerehabilitation in functional outcomes: patients achieved greater gains in the 6-minute walk test (a measure of aerobic endurance) and maximal oxygen uptake, the gold-standard measure of cardiorespiratory fitness. The adherence advantage is clinically meaningful—telerehabilitation participants were more likely to sustain physical activity and dietary changes beyond the program. On psychological measures, telerehabilitation showed benefit in selected domains (exact measures varied across trials), suggesting that app-based delivery may reduce barriers to engagement for some patients. However, the null findings on traditional risk factors (blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose) are important: both groups improved equally, indicating that while telerehabilitation engages patients better, it does not offer metabolic or hemodynamic superiority over in-person care. The heterogeneity caveat is crucial—some trials compared telerehabilitation to full structured programs, others to minimal usual care, making direct effect-size comparison difficult. Cost-effectiveness and long-term adherence beyond the study period were not systematically analyzed.