Effect of Traditional Chinese Exercises on Patients with Chronic Heart Failure (TCE-HF): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation is safe and effective for chronic heart failure (CHF) patients. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of traditional Chinese exercise (TCE) on patients with CHF and the impact of exercise types and duration. Evaluation of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of TCE in patients with CHF published since 1997 from PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library, Chongqing VIP, Wanfang Databases, and the China National Knowledge was performed. A total of 41 RCTs, including 3209 patients with CHF, were included. It showed that TCE significantly increased 6-min walk distance (6MWD) [mean difference (MD) = 72.82 m, p p p p p p p p < 0.005). TCE improves exercise capacity, cardiac function, and quality of life in patients with CHF, which might be an optimal and available pattern of exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation.

Keywords

• heart failure
• cardiac rehabilitation
• traditional Chinese exercise
• exercise capacity
• cardiac function