Objective:

To describe the clinical-demographic characteristics and distance walked before and after cardiac surgery in subjects admitted to the cardiovascular unit of a private hospital in the province of Buenos Aires.

Materials and method:

This is an observational, descriptive, and retrospective study conducted on 17 adults who underwent cardiac surgery in the cardiovascular unit of Hospital Universitario Austral. Clinical-demographic variables (sex, age, body mass index, cardiovascular risk factors, comorbidities, Euroscore, and ejection fraction), surgical variables (type of surgery, time of extracorporeal circulation, and clamping), postoperative complications, and distance walked before and after surgery [distance walked and percentage of predicted values in the 6-minute walk test (6MWT)] were registered. The variables were collected from databases of the Physical Therapy Service and analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 27.

Results:

The sample was composed of 11 men (64.7%), with a mean age of 58.18 years +/- 14.05 and a mean ejection fraction of 63% +/- 6.06. The distance walked in the 6MWT before surgery was 479.30 m +/- 84.01, while the distance walked in the 6MWT at discharge was 388.09 m +/- 72,72. The median postoperative length of stay was 7 days (IQR 6-8).

Conclusion:

The distance walked in the postoperative period of cardiac surgery, assessed with the 6MWT, was lower than the distance walked in the preoperative period.

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