The largest trial to date looking at cardiac rehabilitation and health benefits of yoga found that in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI), yoga-based cardiac rehab was safe, feasible and improved quality of life. The Yoga-CaRe trial was presented Nov. 10 at AHA 2018 in Chicago, IL.

Dorairaj Prabhakaran, MD, DM, et al., looked at 4,014 patients from 22 cardiac centers across India who were recruited after AMI and were randomized to the Yoga-CaRe program – 13 in-hospital sessions supervised by an instructor with encouragement to practice regularly at home – or enhanced standard care with three educational sessions.

Results showed that the primary outcome of major adverse cardiovascular event and quality of life at 12 weeks was not different between the two groups, and there were "numerically fewer outcomes in the Yoga-CaRe group, but not statistically significant." The researchers add that there was inadequate power to detect the planned difference due to lower event rate than estimated. However, "improvement in the self-rated quality of life was significantly greater in the Yoga-CaRe group."

The authors conclude that "Yoga-CaRe has the potential to be an alternative to the conventional CR programs and address the unmet needs of cardiac rehabilitation for patients in low- and middle-income countries."

Keywords: AHA18, AHA Annual Scientific Sessions, Cardiac Rehabilitation, Yoga, Myocardial Infarction

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