[Cardiac rehabilitation of elderly patients with multiple diseases]

The cardiac diseases present in 274 multimorbid, older patients (mean age 72,42 yrs.) have been examined in the study reported. Careful differentiation of cardiac diagnoses present at the time of admission was found to be of utmost importance in outcome prediction. The combination of cardiac decompensation and arrhythmia, and recurrent infarction in the presence of myocardial scarring, respectively, had been the most important factors concerning functional capacity at time of discharge. Mortality, too, was found to be related to these criteria.