Background: A quality goal of medical rehabilitation is ongoing and continuous development of service standards orientated by the patient and new research findings. Because of the stark increase of research findings in the field of rehabilitation, it becomes difficult for the responsible rehabilitation providers to keep up to date on new findings and to realize the transfer of knowledge. Hence, the aim was to establish a literature research which surveys current national and international results in cardiac rehabilitation.
Methods: The literature search was undertaken using the electronic databases OVID and includes publications from 2009 and the first 2 months of 2010. The selection of studies was performed in a team of experts based on the criteria of relevance, usefulness and methodological quality of research for rehabilitation.
Results: 26 primary sources were selected, mainly focusing the fields "Cardiac rehabilitation: indications", "Risk factors and prevention", "Job-related reintegration", "Rehabilitation of specific medical disease patterns" and "New rehabilitation models".
Conclusion: The studies examined show very clearly that cardiac patients can benefit from participation in cardiac rehabilitation treatment and that prevention represents a central task of medical care in the long-term treatment of coronary diseases. There is a need for further research, especially concerning the topics "New rehabilitation models" and "Job-related reintegration". The DGRW Update intends to depict current developments and to promote evidence-based medicine in rehabilitation.
Copyright Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart New York.