The Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention at 40 Years and Its Role in the Evolution of Cardiac Rehabilitation

The maturing of a clinical discipline necessitates the ability to document scientific advancements and state-of-the-art reviews with a focus on clinical practice. Such was the case for the field of cardiac rehabilitation in 1981. Whereas a growing body of literature was demonstrating benefits of exercise in cardiac patients with regard to clinical, psychologic, and quality-of-life outcomes,1,2 there were still concerns about the safety of exercise and whether it could be widely adapted in clinical care. Since this was a time period when searches of online databases such as PubMed had not yet been established (began in 1996), there was a great value of concentrating much of the cardiac rehabilitation literature in a single journal. This commentary describes the conceptualization and implementation of the Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention from 1981 to the present and its acceptance as the official journal of the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation and later the Canadian Association of Cardiac Rehabilitation. The commentary also highlights the journal's inclusion in Index Medicus in 1995, its receipt of an impact factor from International Scientific Indexing in 2007, and its publication of many important scientific statements, often in collaboration with major scientific organizations such as the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology.