Evidence-based On-call

Congestive heart failure

Prevention

Once your patient has been stable for several months, consider long-term exercise training ^a

Why?

Exercise training (stretching exercises followed by 40 minutes of exercise cycling twice a week for 14 months) reduces hospital admissions for heart failure and death ^a

Exercise training reduces death and hospitalisation for heart failure

Patient	Treatment	Comparison	Outcome	CER	RRR (95% CI)	NNT (95% CI)
stable heart failure ^a	exercise training	no exercise training	death at 3.3 years	41%	56% (13% to 78%)	4 (2 to 18)
			hospital admission for heart failure at 3.3 years	29%	65% (10% to 86%)	5 (3 to 29)