The Role of Exercise Therapy in the Treatment of Patients with Systolic Heart Failure

The predominant benefits of exercise training in systolic heart failure have been seen with aerobic training, although some information exists for the beneficial effects of resistive training as well. Although men clearly benefit from exercise training, the effects of exercise in women are less clear. Most of the studies have used supervised training 3 to 5 days a week for 8 weeks to 6 months, with 30 to 60 minutes of exercise per session. However, home exercise has been reported in a few studies, and appears to be safe and possibly efficacious. The effects of training on mortality are unknown at this time, although no study has demonstrated increased adverse events associated with training. Exercise training should be recommended for patients with stable New York Heart Association class II to III heart failure.