Pharmacological Therapy Adherence: A Poorly Explored Benefit of Cardiac Rehabilitation

A few decades ago, participation in cardiac rehabilitation programs (CRP) or supervised exercise (SEP) programs has been recommended as an important part in the secondary prevention of coronary artery disease (CAD)1-3. As pointed out in a recent editorial, CRP and SEP have been shown to be beneficial not only in CAD, but also in at least 20 other abnormal conditions or cardiovascular diseases4. Although there is substantial evidence of many physiological, psychological, clinical and epidemiological benefits from participating in CRP or SEP5,6, a little explored aspect is that patients who regularly attend these programs can more accurately follow the medications prescribed by their doctors, that is, they can present greater adherence to the drug treatment (ADT).