[Experiences with the early mobilisation of elderly patients with myocardial infarction (author's transl)]

Patients with myocardial infarction undergoing a multi-stage activation programme according to the WHO recommendations, consisting of five basic phases, can be mobilised about 85% of the time within the first 20 days of hospitalisation and about 55% of the time already in the second week after the attack. The average hospital stay is four weeks. In the hospital phase the early mobilised patients showed a decrease in early mortality and complications, e.g., reinfarction, heart rupture, development of aneurysm, cardiac insufficiency, thromboembolism, and heart arrhythmia, compared to 190 patients of the same age, who were under traditional bed rest and anticoagulation therapy. It is particularly interesting to note that patients under bed rest and anticoagulation therapy (risk group II B) far more often incurred complications than patients without cumulative risk factors (groups IA, IIA), and patients undergoing early rehabilitation (group I B).