Heart valve repair and replacement is an invasive surgery which may compromise quality of life for the patients concerned. Therefore, patients who had heart valve surgery need rehabilitation interventions to prevent potential complications, and to promote quality of health. A rehabilitation programme is a medically supervised intervention which can assist patients coping with challenges related to heart surgeries and prevent potential complications. This review was undertaken to identify core components of a cardiac rehabilitation programme which can feasibly be adopted for the rehabilitation of patients who had heart valve surgeries locally. A literature review of articles on best practices regarding the core components of cardiac rehabilitation for patients who underwent heart valve repair or replacement surgery was undertaken. Published international guidelines of best practice for cardiac rehabilitation from 1993 to 2018, available in English language were identified through a search of electronic database and reviewed. A total of 20 articles with concepts on cardiac rehabilitation programme were retrieved. Out of the total, only 8 articles meet the criteria and the data were collected from the 8 articles. The findings indicated that patient assessment, exercise, physical counselling, diet/nutritional counselling, tobacco cessation, mental health, return to work, lipids, hypertension, cardio-protective therapies are essential components for the rehabilitation after heart valve surgeries, to support patients and their families to cope with challenges related to surgeries. These in return improve quality of life for the patients concerned. The core components for the cardiac rehabilitation programmes as highlighted by the international guidelines can be adapted to the cardiac rehabilitation programme in Namibia if tailored to the contextualized needs for the cardiac patients in Namibia.
