[Importance of electroimpulse therapy for restoration of work capacity in patients with auricular fibrillation]

Social rehabilitation was studied in 799 patients with atrial fibrillation. Before the sinus rhythm was restored 26% of the patients had been working. Among the working patients the history of atrial fibrillation was usually of a short duration (9.8 +/- 1 months, on the average), and among the nonworking patients it comprised 28.9 +/- 0.6 months. After the reestablishment of the sinus rhythm the precentage of rehabilitation grew to 40. It greatly depended on the nature of the underlying pathology, sex (among the working patients, 51.8% were men and 25.5% -- women), place of habitation (capacity for work was restored in 45.8% of urban patients, and in 32.0% of rural patients). Upon the restoration of the sinus rhythm the capacity for work increased most markedly among the patients previously subjected to surgical correction of mitral stenosis (by 26.3%), and among those with post-myocarditis cardiosclerosis (by 17.4%). Repeated counterpulsation procedures in cases of atrial fibrillation recurrences provided for a lasting maintenance of the patients' capacity for work. To prolong the rehabilitation results it is rational to recommend such jobs for the patients that would not entail important physical and emotional stress.