Guideline Video

Guideline Resources

  • Title: Cardiac Rehabilitation in Women
  • Society: American Heart Association
  • Publish Date: October 14, 2025
  • Summary
  • Full-text

Video Transcription

Just published October 14, 2025 - The American Heart Association’s newest scientific statement on Cardiac Rehabilitation in Women.

Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is a proven intervention to improve cardiovascular health, offering benefits such as reduced hospital readmission rates, lower mortality rates, and enhanced quality of life. Poor CR participation, which is a universal problem, is particularly pronounced in women. 

In today’s rapid update video, we’ll just be going over key takeaways on the sections, specific benefits of CR and physical activity in women and evidenced based solutions for CR implementation among women. For the full scientific statement, make sure to check it out on guidelinecentral.com

Starting with the section on specific benefits of CR and physical activity in women, the scientific statement says that women in CR experience a relatively greater mortality risk reduction as compared to men. The benefits include improved health status, fewer cardiovascular events, and even cost savings. 

On to the section on evidenced based SOLUTIONS for CR implementation among women. The scientific statement outlines several strategies to increase access, participation, and engagement.

Starting with the section on increasing referrals and enrollment. The absence of a referral to CR remains one of the clearest and most modifiable risk factors for nonparticipation. Automatization is one of the most effective strategies for increasing CR referrals. A second strategy for increasing enrollment includes targeted education to patients and clinicians.

On to Increasing Participation and Engagement,

Strategies that increase CR referral and enrollment have also been shown to improve CR adherence. Specific to CR participation, women’s tailored CR programs remain an area of investigation given their potential to target behavioral, clinical, and psychosocial factors unique to women. A second potential strategy for increasing CR participation includes sex-tailored exercise prescriptions.

Moving on to Peer Support Programming,
In a systematic review of 12 clinical trials, peer support after MI led to increased self-efficacy, self-care, quality of life, and therapeutic adherence, lower depression and anxiety scores, and lower rates of rehospitalization and health care use compared with controls. Specific to women, support from peers and family leads to improved coping mechanisms for participating in CR, which leads to improved CR attendance.


On to the section on Mental Health Support,
Existing evidence supports incorporating mental health interventions as part of CR, although further research is needed to determine the sex- and disease-specific benefits of these interventions. Routine incorporation of mental health services throughout the CR process would include structured psychologic counseling, support groups, and stress management programs tailored to the needs of each patient.

And last the section on Nontraditional Delivery Models Using Digital Technologies

There is emerging evidence to suggest that remote or virtual CR incorporating digital technologies, either in isolation or as part of hybrid CR programs, achieves similar improvements in functional capacity as in-person CR.

Make sure to check out the full guideline from The American Heart Association and other related clinical decision support tools at guidelinecentral.com.

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