Pre-operative Rehabilitation for Reduction of Hospitalization After Coronary Bypass and Valvular Surgery.

The PREHAB study is a clinical trial where frail patients waiting for heart surgery are randomly chosen to either receive the current standard of care or to participate in an 8-week exercise/education program at a community-based cardiac rehabilitation facility. Patients can wait for elective heart surgery for as long as 3-4 months. During this time, individuals are often fearful of making things worse, causing them to stop being active and further deteriorate their physical condition. This wait period presents a potential opportunity for health care providers to engage the patient to take control of their self-managed care prior to surgery with the intent of improving post-surgical outcomes. Patients randomized to the PREHAB intervention group will participate in supervised exercise twice per week in a program designed to improve physical functioning and exercise capacity. The investigators hypothesize that the PREHAB program for frail elderly patients awaiting an elective cardiac surgery will reduce frailty, improve exercise capacity, improve physical activity behaviour, improve in-hospital outcomes, improve clinical outcomes 3 months and 1 year postoperatively, and improve overall quality of life.