Aim: To point out the importance and possibility of applying some new methods of digital health in cardiovascular rehabilitation (CR).
Background: Cardiovascular rehabilitation (CR) is a part of cardiologic treatment that is performed in specialized hospitals or outpatient centers by a team of medical personnel using an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach. CR is an effective, safe, cost-effective procedure that can be tailored to the patient and reduces mortality, increases functional capacity, restores work fitness and work capacity, and improves quality of life. This form of cardiologic treatment is adaptable and economical but still underused because it is partly ignored by medical professionals themselves, and also due to the possible remoteness of available rehabilitation centers.
Materials and methods: The combination of analysis of the heart rhythm variability of the patient, who is in the CR program, and music and image therapy, the so-called fractal chromo-musicotherapy. This means that we could give the patient the so-called “three-in-one” therapy, that is, chromotherapy based on the images and colors of his heart generated from the digital data of the electrocardiogram (ECG) signal during the cardiac rehabilitation program (basic ECG, telemetry ECG, or 24-hour ECG recording) and music therapy that is especially for the patient composed by a professional pianist who has extensive experience in music therapy for various forms of illness. Patients listen to “harmonious music” for and from the heart and, at the same time, observe fractal images and colors of their hearts.
Conclusion: The combination of standard and new techniques based on a holistic approach and digital health could achieve better patient involvement in the CR program, better rehabilitation results, and longer sustainability of positive results.
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