Abstract

It is very hard to define the individual changes in the heart rate even by an experienced cardiologist. There are numerous reasons for a heart rate to speed up, or slow, or vary inexplicably. These reasons are not well-known in the cardiology literature. The basal, peak and maximum heart rates are commonly used values in physiology and clinical medicine. For example, the percentage of maximum or peak heart rate, or a fixed percentage of heart rate is used to prescribe the medicine or the intensity of exercise in both the disease prevention and the rehabilitation programs. Recently, it has been reported that a delayed heart rate recovery during the first and second minute after acute exercise is an independent predictor of overall mortality.