title: [Rehabilitation following myocardial infarct].
abstract: Today rehabilitation after myocardial-infarction is a routine measure in most countries, yet its effectiveness is still under discussion. Rehabilitation aims at ameliorating the quality of life and at preventing a cardiovascular reevent, in other words at prolonging life. The latter "hard" endpoints is best amenable to quantification. Only recent meta-analyses of pooled data were able to show that rehabilitation in fact does prolong life. The relative importance of physical exercise in mostly complex rehabilitation programs is even less clear. This analyses implies a benefit, yet the exact proof is still missing. If rehabilitation could be shown to improve quality of life, its application would, of course, be justified even if it did fail to prolong life. Important open questions relate to the optimizing of rehabilitation: duration, frequency, intensity as well as age and sex of responders. Answering these will be a challenge for tomorrow's rehabilitation medicine.
authors.affiliation: Universitätsklinik für Physikalische Medizin, Wien.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ernst
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Quittan
mesh_terms: D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D004434:Early Ambulation; D006801:Humans; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000401:mortality / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D010806:Physical Education and Training; D011788:Quality of Life; D012047:Rehabilitation Centers; D015996:Survival Rate
vernacular_title: Rehabilitation nach Herzinfarkt.