Heart Failure and Physical Rehabilitation in Physiotherapy: Safety, Functionality and Reduction of Hospitalizations: A Narrative Review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62827/fb.v27i5.1233Keywords:
Cardiac Rehabilitation; Exercise Therapy; Exercise Tolerance; Quality of Life; Patient Readmission.Abstract
Introduction: Heart failure is a highly prevalent chronic syndrome with a poor prognosis, marked by recurrent hospitalizations and by pronounced exercise intolerance that compromises autonomy and quality of life. Objective: To critically review the available evidence on physical rehabilitation in heart failure, emphasizing safety, functionality and reduction of hospitalizations. Methods: Narrative literature review, descriptive and qualitative. The search was carried out between January and June 2026 in the Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), accessed through PubMed, Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature (LILACS), Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) and Cochrane Library databases, complemented by Google Scholar as grey literature. Descriptors from the Health Sciences Descriptors (DeCS) and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) were combined with Boolean operators, prioritizing publications from 2021 to 2026, without excluding landmark studies and reference guidelines. Selection was made jointly by the authors, by reading titles and abstracts and then the full texts. Results: Supervised exercise training was safe in clinically stable patients, including those with implantable devices, and consistently improved functional capacity and quality of life. The effect on hospitalizations was favorable in most meta-analyses, although heterogeneous, whereas the impact on mortality remained uncertain. Conclusion: Physical rehabilitation should be routinely incorporated into heart failure care, with physiotherapy in a central position, although gaps persist, particularly the scarcity of Brazilian studies and of strategies to expand access.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Rafael Viana dos Santos Coutinho, Zoraia Cajueiro de Oliveira, Iara Bethania Arcanjo de Oliveira, Luísa Spíndola Silva, Luiz Fernando Ferreira da Silveira (Autor)
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