Impact of Adding Early Bedside Cycling to Inpatient Cardiac Rehabilitation on Physical Function and Length of Stay after Heart Valve Surgery. A Randomized Controlled Trial

To assess whether adding bedside cycling to inpatient cardiac rehabilitation (CR) early after heart valve surgery could lead to better physical function and shorter length of hospital stays. This is a single-centered, randomized, controlled, parallel-group intervention study. This study was conducted at the National Heart Institute from December 2022 to June 2023. Thirty-one heart valve surgery patients completed this study after being randomized into two groups: an intervention group (n =16) and an active control group (n =15). Eligibility criteria were heart valve surgery with median sternotomy, clinical stability, and age from 20 to 40. the intervention group received early bedside cycling for the lower limbs, using a mini bike, in addition to an inpatient CR program, and the control group received the CR program alone. The primary outcome was six-minute walk distance (6MWD). The secondary outcomes comprised forced vital capacity (FVC), Barthel Index (BI), the length of ICU stay, the total length of hospital stay, and the physical component summary (PCS) of the 12-item Short Form (SF-12) Health Survey. Compared to the control group, the intervention group showed more improvements in 6MWD (p