[Subsequent rehabilitation treatment after aortocoronary bypass--how often is reintegration into occupational life...

Investigated was the insurance course of 184 insurants of the Landesversicherungsanstalt Oberfranken und Mittelfranken who, in 1986 and 1987, had participated in in-patient rehabilitation procedures immediately following the post-acute stage, i.e. Anschlussheilbehandlung (AHB), after aortocoronary bypass surgery. Nearly 60% of these insurants were granted a pension within the first two years after AHB, half of them on a permanent basis. The pensioning rate is substantially influenced by beneficiary age: all of the 60 to 64 year-olds and almost every second of the 50 to 54 year-olds were granted a pension. Insurants with formal vocational education more often received premature pension than those without formal training. A cardiac load test showed that cardiac efficiency does not correlate with the return-to-work/pensioning rate. Age seems to play an important additional role in this respect, as older beneficiaries were pensioned more often than younger ones, with the same cardiac fitness found for both groups in cardiac load testing.