Sleep Apnea Treatment During Cardiac Rehabilitation of Congestive Heart Failure Patients

Overview

Sleep disordered breathing (SDB) is a frequent comorbidity for heart failure patients. Its prevalence varies according to the seriousness of the condition of the patients, but it is present in approximately 50% of patients. Screening patients for SDB and managing them by providing adapted ventilation therapy should improve their quality of life or even their prognosis. Moreover, SDB lowers nocturnal cardiovascular recovery abilities and leads to an increase in fatigability and, as a result, exercise intolerance in patients with heart failure. Physical training as part of a cardiac rehabilitation programme provides many benefits, including improving patients' exercise capacities. Our hypothesis is that adapted sleep disordered breathing therapy during rehabilitation will lead to an improvement in rehabilitation results.

Controlled, randomised, multicentre study. Patients will be assessed prior to starting the rehabilitation programme with regard to exercise tolerance parameters (cardiopulmonary exercise test, 6 minute walk test), ultrasound parameters and biological parameters (Na, Hb, BNP). The cardiac rehabilitation programme will include education, secondary prevention and physical training components in each of the two groups. The physical training component will include a minimal "base" of activities that is identical for both groups. The nocturnal therapy device will be adapted to the type of SDB specific to each patient (central, mixed, obstructive). The randomisation will be stratified by centre according to predictive factors for performance improvement during rehabilitation. The main objective is to evaluate the improvement in physical performance resulting from adapted ventilation on SDB compared to physical training alone in patients with heart failure.