Tailoring Assessments and Prescription in Cardiac Rehabilitation for Older Adults: The Relevance of Geriatric Domains

Abstract

Older adults have distinctive health challenges that are relevant to the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases and are potentially modifiable by cardiac rehabilitation. Cardiac rehabilitation in older adults provides opportunity to assess sarcopenia, obesity, osteoporosis, frailty, falls risk, arthritis, cognition, special senses, self-efficacy, depression, social support, polypharmacy, and nutritional adequacy. Therefore, broadening standard assessments to include these domains can help detect modifiable vulnerabilities and inform therapeutic priorities.

Keywords: Cognitive impairment; Depression; Mobility impairment; Polypharmacy; Resistance training; Sarcopenia.