Effectiveness of a Cardiac Rehabilitation Program in Elderly Patients With Heart Failure.

The main objective of the study is to assess the effectiveness of a cardiac rehabilitation program on functionality, measured by kinematic analysis, cardiorespiratory capacity, and ventricular ejection fraction in elderly patients with heart failure (HF). Other objectives will be; 1) to validate the kinematic analysis as an objective functional assessment that allows performing a functional stratification based on the severity of impairment ("kinematic phenotypes"), as well as to identify those patients who responders or are not responders to the cardiac rehabilitation program; 2) to develop a functional index that includes objective functional parameters, biomechanical biomarkers (heart and musculoskeletal echography) and physiological biomarkers (maximum consumption of oxygen (VO2 max), maximum heart rate (HR max) and blood lactate levels; 3) to analyse the degree of concordance of biomechanical biomarkers with functional tests normally used in clinical practice and with imaging and physiological biomarkers. A randomized, controlled, crossover clinical trial will be carried out at the Hospital Regional Universitario de Málaga. Clinically stable HF patients ≥70 years old will be included. The cardiac rehabilitation program will last 12 weeks and will follow the recommendations of the European Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation. The patients will perform different functional tests, which will be at baseline, at 3 months and 6 months of follow-up.