Healthier Hearts in Needham
CVI-Needham Teams Up with Clubs for Healthier Hearts
With the number of overweight and obese Americans reaching epidemic proportions and physical inactivity more common, the CardioVascular Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham is collaborating with one of the most respected fitness centers in the area to provide patients with opportunities to develop healthier lifestyles. “It is becoming increasingly important for individuals to adopt an exercise regimen to prevent, recover from, or lessen the impact of a number of health problems that can be associated with being overweight and inactive,” said Dr. Joseph Kannam, chief of cardiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham. Medical issues that can be associated with weight include heart disease, stroke, diabetes, some forms of cancer, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and osteoarthritis.
The CardioVascular Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham, in partnership with Dedham Health and Athletic Complex (DHAC), offers Healthy Heart, a supervised exercise program using state-of-the-art equipment at DHAC, to provide a critical first step toward a healthier lifestyle. The program caters to individuals who have been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, those with no evidence of cardiovascular disease but with risk factors, and those who have had a coronary event.
Healthy Heart is a self-pay program for which Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham cardiologists or other physicians write an “exercise prescription.” Prospective Healthy Heart participants then meet individually with a trained exercise physiologist at DHAC to develop an individualized exercise program. Participants exercise within a discrete, well-supervised, safe and comfortable workout gym that is equipped with highly specialized equipment that tracks and monitors each individual’s workout performance, as well as a variety of other factors such as blood pressure and heart rate. “Healthy Heart has all the right pieces to help people succeed,” according to Lloyd Gainsboro, DHAC president. “This program ties the medical community with the exercise community to achieve great results for patients.”
