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Show Care Needed In Exercising Weak Hearts By DR. JAMES W. BARTON ONE of the points that was taught us as medical students was the use of exercise exer-cise in weak or failing hearts. Today the first I thought in treat- TODAY'S ing an acute urn ITU heart ailment- " jmn angina, coro- lJLUiim nary -thrombo- I 1 sis, high blood pressure is absolute' rest in order to give the heart a chance to regain re-gain some of its strength or "reserve." And because rest is the proper treatment at this time, patients, pa-tients, and sometimes physicians, are .likely to indulge in or prescribe rest when what the heart really needs to gain new strength is exercise. exer-cise. A popular treatment in former years was what was known as the Nauheim baths and the Schott method of "resistive" "resist-ive" exercise in which the patient exercises his muscles mus-cles against the resistance re-sistance of the physician's phy-sician's or attendant's attend-ant's hands. In speaking of exercise ex-ercise in the treatment treat-ment of chronic (not recent) heart or blood vessel disease, Dr. Barton Dr- Louis Faugeres Bishop Jr., New York, in Archives of Physical Therapy, Ther-apy, X-ray, Radium, states that with bed patients, massage, breathing breath-ing exercises, and "resistive" exercises exer-cises are beneficial in that they help to force the used blood in the veins back to the heart. Gradual 'Exercise Increase. What is known as the Oertel method meth-od of exercise consists of graded walks carried out until the patient begins to feel the effects of the exercise exer-cise by very rapid breathing. Beginning Be-ginning on the level, the walks are increased gradually with regard to distance and incline or steepness. For less severe cases, where the patient is up and about most of the time, Dr. Bishop suggests that as it is difficult to know exactly how much exercise the patient can take safely, he should be allowed to tell how his everyday manner of life affects him. The stair test or exercise has been much used. Some heart patients live entirely on the ground floor, but Dr. Bishop points out that if they climbed the stairs one step at a time, it might become a heart strengthening and safe exercise. The thought then is that after the heart has been rested in bed and by sitting around for some time, some form of exercise, as directed by the physician, strengthens the heart muscle and prevents patient from becoming an invalid. |