Rehabilitation Systems in Different Areas of the World

Abstract

The beginnings of cardiac rehabilitation as a new sub-discipline of cardiology go back to 1964, when for the first time a group of specialists discussed the problem of rehabilitation of patients with cardiovasculatory disease on an initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO) [1]. The result was an inventory of up-to-date findings in the field of cardiac rehabilitation; in 1967, a second WHO working group met in Noordwijk in order to enter into practical work [3]. Decisive pioneer work was then provided by the newly founded Working Group on Cardiac Rehabilitation of the International Society and Federation of Cardiology with its founder president Professor Denolin. Soon the activities in Europe were followed by comparable impulses in countries outside Europe, mainly in Israel and the United States. All efforts at standardizing rehabilitative measures resulted at first in a recommendation of how to divide the course of rehabilitation into different stages in chronological order, which has by now been established whole-wide [2]. Phase I includes hospitalization immediately after the acute event; this phase I of rehabilitation lasts until discharge from hospital. This is the start of phase II, which ends with the patient’s return to work or with regaining his abilities to cope with everyday life activities. Phase III includes the patient’s further life after complete occupational and social reintegration.