A home-based exercise program improves heart rate variability and functional capacity among postmenopausal women with coronary artery disease

AIMS: To determine whether a home-based exercise program is able to increase functional capacity (FC) and reduce heart rate variability (HRV) in postmenopausal women with coronary heart disease. BACKGROUND: Regular exercise training has been shown to improve both FC and HRV. However, those studies were conducted within institutional training programs, and few have included women. METHODS: Thirty-two postmenopausal women were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group with 16 participants in each group. Those in the experimental group underwent home-based exercise training, 3 times a week for 8 weeks. On the first and final week, each participant's HRV was measured, and their FC was evaluated using a 6-minute walking test. FINDINGS: After 8 weeks, the FC of those who had undergone the home-based exercise program showed a significant improvement compared with subjects in the control group (P = .001). The total power (ms), high-frequency (ms), and low-frequency (ms) indexes of HRV were also significantly improved over control values. CONCLUSION: In postmenopausal women with coronary heart disease, a home-based exercise program appears able to improve FC and HRV.