Effects of cardiac resynchronization therapy on health-related quality of life in older adults with heart failure

Abstract

Karin F Hoth1,2, Justin Nash3, Athena Poppas4, Kristin E Ellison4, Robert H Paul5, Ronald A Cohen31Division of Psychosocial Medicine, National Jewish Medical and Research Center, Denver, CO, USA; 2Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado, Denver, CO, USA; 3Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior; 4Department of Cardiology, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, USA; 5Department of Psychology, Division of Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Missouri St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USAAbstract: The aim of the study was to examine changes in health-related quality of life among older adults undergoing cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), a pacemaker based intervention for heart failure. Twenty-one patients (mean age = 68; SD = 8) completed measures of cardiovascular health and quality of life prior to and 3-months post-CRT. Following the intervention, patients reported improvements in their perception of their physical functioning (t = 2.8, p < 0.01) and feelings of vitality (t = 2.9, p < 0.01) on the MOS SF-36 Health Survey. Patients improved on objective clinical measures of exercise capacity, cardiac ejection fraction, and ventricular dyssynchrony. Younger patients reported greater improvements in physical functioning and decreases in pain. Higher baseline body mass index was associated with less improvement in physical functioning. Finally, patients with nonischemic heart failure reported greater improvements on multiple subscales of the SF-36 than patients with ischemic heart failure. This preliminary study documented improvements in health-related quality of life following CRT. The findings highlight that specific patient characteristics may be associated with quality of life changes. Future studies will benefit from including quality of life measures that assess multiple health-related domains.Keywords: cardiac resynchronization therapy, heart failure, quality of life