Appropriateness of the metabolic equivalent (MET) as an estimate of exercise intensity for post-myocardial infarction patients

Exercise is an important intervention used in cardiac rehabilitation to improve patient health outcomes and for secondary prevention of cardiac and other co-morbidities. In recent times there has been some debate amongst researchers and practitioners over the use of equations and indices, which are mainly based on healthy individuals, to estimate exercise intensity. Often these are used to provide assistance with exercise prescription and/or to establish exercise capacity for risk stratification purposes, in settings like cardiac rehabilitation. The metabolic equivalent (MET) is one such metric.