Cited by 251Cardiac Health and Mental HealthTelemedicine and Telehealth ImplementationMobile Health and mHealth Applications

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 136 of the 139 references it cites were found in a registry or an index, and 1 are not checked yet; none of the 76 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

The future is now: a call for action for cardiac telerehabilitation in the COVID-19 pandemic from the secondary prevention and rehabilitation section of the European Association of Preventive Cardiology

Open access

Abstract

The role of comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation is well established in the secondary prevention of cardiovascular diseases such as coronary artery disease and heart failure. Numerous trials have demonstrated both the effectiveness as well as the cost-effectiveness of comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation in improving exercise capacity and quality of life, and in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity. However, the current COVID-19 pandemic has led to closure of many cardiac rehabilitation centres in Europe resulting in many eligible patients unable to participate in the optimisation of secondary prevention and physical performance. This elicits an even louder call for alternatives such as cardiac telerehabilitation to maintain the delivery of the core components of cardiac rehabilitation to cardiovascular disease patients. The present call for action paper gives an update of recent cardiac telerehabilitation studies and provides a practical guide for the setup of a comprehensive cardiac telerehabilitation intervention during the COVID-19 pandemic. This set up could also be relevant to any cardiovascular disease patient not able to visit cardiac rehabilitation centres regularly after the COVID-19 pandemic ceases.

Checked 2026-10-09 · 1 reference not checked yet

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

This European Association of Preventive Cardiology call for action argues that COVID-19-related closure of centre-based cardiac rehabilitation makes cardiac telerehabilitation necessary to maintain secondary prevention. It reviews recent telerehabilitation evidence and provides practical guidance for remotely delivering core cardiac rehabilitation components.

Key findings

  • Cardiac telerehabilitation trials generally show home-based or remote exercise training is comparable to centre-based cardiac rehabilitation for exercise capacity and quality of life, with some trials reporting greater improvements, greater patient satisfaction, or cost-effectiveness; examples include TELEREHAB III, TRiCH, TELEREH-HF, Fit@Home, and Maddison et al.
  • Remote risk-factor management has supporting evidence: a meta-analysis of 104 trials with 111,653 patients found moderate-certainty evidence that proactive telephone counselling increases smoking quit rates; internet-based smoking cessation improved cessation probability by 29% short term and 19% long term; smartphone applications reduced HbA1c by 0.57% in type 2 diabetes; internet-based weight loss produced mean short-term weight loss of 2.13 kg but long-term loss of 0.17 kg.
  • Safety data cited state major cardiovascular complications during supervised exercise training for cardiovascular disease patients are about one per 50,000 patient-hours; for a centre seeing 500–1000 patients per year, this translates to approximately one major event per year. Remote assessment can use electronic medical records, telephone/video consultation, remote 6-minute walk test, the HUNT study tool, and self-monitoring, with low-intensity training advised and exercise avoided in acute COVID-19 until at least 2 days afebrile.
  • Practical setup recommendations include telephone, video consultation, text messaging, email, social media, and apps; privacy/GDPR-compliant systems and informed consent are advised. Remote monitoring can include blood pressure, weight, heart rate, glycaemia, and steps, with 5000 steps/day indicating sedentary lifestyle, 7000–10,000 steps/day for healthy adults, and 100 steps/minute as a reasonable moderate-intensity threshold.

Methods

  • Design: a call for action/position paper from the EAPC Secondary Prevention and Rehabilitation Section, not primary research; its stated aims are to call for remote cardiac rehabilitation during COVID-19, summarise recent cardiac telerehabilitation trials, and provide a practical guide for setting up remote cardiac rehabilitation.
  • Evidence base: narrative synthesis of existing trials and meta-analyses, with tables summarising recent cardiac telerehabilitation studies for coronary artery disease and telerehabilitation services in EAPC accredited centres.
  • Analysis: descriptive and narrative; no new patient data, systematic review, or formal meta-analysis is described.

Limitations

  • The paper states that more telerehabilitation research is needed because studies are limited and recent, conducted on selected and stabilised cardiac patients, and all performed in northern Europe; it also states there is no evidence that telerehabilitation improves participation rates, most trials focus only on exercise training and physical activity rather than all core components of cardiac rehabilitation, few trials assess recurrent events, rehospitalisations, and mortality, endpoints are prone to spontaneous recovery, and telerehabilitation studies rarely focus on phase I.
  • The paper also notes limited evidence for remotely delivered psychosocial or vocational support, small sample sizes and short durations in mobile-app hypertension studies, and that firm conclusions cannot be drawn for type 2 diabetes remote management because of relatively small trial sample sizes; more RCTs are needed for smoking cessation apps.
  • Evident from the text: as a call for action/position paper, the recommendations are expert guidance rather than a systematic evidence synthesis, and the COVID-19 pandemic context shapes the proposed implementation; the provided text also contains OCR gaps and truncated sections.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1177/2047487320939671

Cites

136 of 137 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

61 Not checked yet · 25 Own interpretation · 10 No basis given

Verify all 76 references — free account

Show all 44 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 35
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 23
52 of 52
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The COVID-19 pandemic has led to closure of many cardiac rehabilitation centres in Europe.

    “However, the current COVID-19 pandemic has led to closure of many cardiac rehabilitation centres in Europe resulting in many eligible patients unable to participate in the optimisation of secondary prevention and physical performance.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Centre-based cardiac rehabilitation programmes have been closed in the majority of European countries.

    “This also includes centre-based CR programmes in the majority of European countries.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Many centres are now exploring feasible options for the remote delivery of personalised cardiac rehabilitation services to a large and heterogeneous group of patients.

    “Hence, many centres are now exploring feasible options for the remote delivery of personalised CR services to a large and heterogeneous group of patients.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Patients have access to text messaging, telephone, video consultation, and social media.

    “Text messaging, telephone and video consultation, and social media are simple and affordable ways to deliver the core components of CR to the patient.”
4 of 4

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

4 of 4

Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Beck, 1996, Manual for the Beck Depression Inventory-II

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 251

Metadata

Authors
Scherrenberg, M., Wilhelm, M., Hansen, D., Völler, H., Cornelissen, V., Frederix, I., Kemps, H., & Dendale, P.
Affiliations
  • Jessa Hospital (BE)
  • University Hospital of Bern (CH)
  • University of Potsdam (DE)
  • KU Leuven (BE)
  • University of Antwerp (BE)
  • Máxima Medisch Centrum (NL)
Corresponding author
Dendale, Paul
Venue
European Journal of Preventive Cardiology
Published
2020-07-03
Volume
28
Issue
5
Pages
524-540
ISSN
  • 2047-4873 (ISSN-L)
  • 2047-4881
OpenAlex
W3039903958
Cited by
251
References
139
Citations by year
2026: 19 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 51 · 2022: 48 · 2021: 68 · 2020: 11
FWCI
27.54
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • European Journal of Preventive Cardiology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Bern Open Repository and Information System (University of Bern) (submittedVersion)
  • Document Server@UHasselt (UHasselt) (submittedVersion)
  • publish.UP (University of Potsdam) (submittedVersion)
  • Lirias (KU Leuven) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Lirias (KU Leuven) (submittedVersion)
  • TU/e Research Portal (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Cardiac Health and Mental Health
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Telemedicine and Telehealth Implementation
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
Keywords
cardiac telerehabilitation, COVID-19 pandemic, cardiac rehabilitation, secondary prevention, cardiovascular disease, coronary artery disease, heart failure, exercise capacity, quality of life, cardiovascular mortality, remote patient monitoring

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

A language model drew the claims from the paper on 2026-10-09, under version 3 of the claim definition (model deepseek-v4.1-flash, prompt extract-v3).

A second model labelled each claim on 2026-10-09 (model jev-1.13-20260917, definition revision gold-guideline-v0.2).

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review