Rehabilitation of patients with implantable cardioverter/defibrillator: a literature review

Abstract

The implantable cardioverter/defibrillator (ICD) has established superiority in reducing mortality for survivors of cardiac arrest or patients at high risk for sudden death. However, patients with ICD suffer from many problems that affect their daily living activity. They also refrain to do exercise, for fear of precipitating life-threatening arrhythmia or receiving an ICD shock. This review outlines the problems that those patients usually face and describes the possible exercise programs as well as the rehabilitative approach for managing their daily living activities.