title: The heart image as a model to internal-organ body image.
abstract: We show that there is indeed an internal-organ body image: the heart. Using questionnaires and drawings, we compared a group of healthy subjects, a group of acutely ill cardiac patients and a group of chronic cardiac patients. A constant body image emerged which was not influenced by heart disease. It seems to us that this approach can serve as a model of further studies of internal-organ body image.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001828:Body Image; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006321:Heart / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological