Rehabilitation of the coronary thrombosis patient.

The problem of rehabilitating the patient who has suffered a coronary thrombosis has many facets and complexities. The physical experience may be new, but some of the mental and emotional experiences are by no means the patient's first ones. Most often he has become familiar with this disease as it affected a parent, close relative, or friend. He has prob ably read an account of this disease in Reader's Digest, or another periodical or has seen a television program, and the chances are that these have been dramatic portrayals, because anything less than sensa tional would hardly attract .notice in these communication media. A person who has witnessed or read of such an experience often considers himself a minor authority on the subject, and is likely to present his dramatic story at social gatherings. When, to this limited educational experience are added a crushing chest pain, injections, an oxygen mask, a hospital bed, bottles and tubes of fluids, venipunctures, whispered orders of doctors to nurses, and the concerned, worried looks of the nearest of kin, it is little wonder that the patient who has suffered a coronary thrombosis is both a physical and emotional wreck, faced in his own mind with physical suffering which will end in either death or invalidism. With this in mind, it becomes obvious that the rehabilitation process should really have begun years before the coronary thrombosis. The whole problem might be divided into three phases as follows: 1. Preventive Medicine. (a) Concerning the contributory causes of coronary thrombosis. (b) Education of the public. 2. The conduct of therapy of the acute phase of coronary thrombosis. 3. Programming the patient's future. (a) Medical care. (b) Emotional and physical stresses.