Abstract

Rehabilitation of the cardiac patient in the next millennium will likely differ substantially from that undertaken today owing to a number of different variables. Among these are changes in the demography of the population of the United States; changes in the demography of cardiovascular disease, and in particular changes in the clinical spectrum of coronary heart disease and of heart failure; a substantial expansion of the populations considered eligible for cardiac rehabilitative care; and an escalating emphasis on preventive interventions, with the boundaries of primary and secondary interventions tending to blur. ¹