Telephone counseling boosts exercise time

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PROVIDENCE, R.I., Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Patients who have completed cardiac rehabilitation were more apt to exercise if they received telephone calls supportive of exercise, U.S. researchers say.

Study leader Bernardine Pinto of The Miriam Hospital, a professor at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, found the maintenance counseling group reported they were exercising at or above the weekly recommendations, were more motivated to stay active, and had better physical functioning than the control group at 12 months.

The study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found a significant drop in weekly exercise in the control group over time. The researchers found that at six months, the counseling group's weekly exercise was approximately 32 minutes more than that of the control group.

By 12 months, patients in the counseling group reported an average difference of 80 minutes of exercise per week compared to those in the control group.

Pinto said both groups received the same number of support calls but the patients in the control group did not receive focused exercise phone support.

"It was also very encouraging to find that even patients with lower levels of exercise at the time of cardiac rehab discharge were particularly helped by the telephone counseling," Pinto said in a statement.