Although it is widely recognized that there are significant variations in the circulation throughout the 24-hour day, these patterns have often been conceived as nuisance variables rather than functional differences. Responses of the circulation are examined here not as stable phenomena, but as integrated functions highly sensitive to environmental conditions, and driven by internal and external pacesetters. In this volume, cardiologists with a primary interest in hypertension or heart disease, chronobiologists, and psychologists join together for the first time to give the reader the opportunity to learn the extent and clinical significance of these changes from a chronobiological, behavioral and physiological perspective.

An opening address should ask the right questions, which we expect to answer during the coming years. A good opening address should formu late hypotheses for falsification during the conference or in the near fu ture. Mter Dr. Groen's excellent lecture yesterday, I feel better about my task, because I feel I am not alone in asking the ten questions in my ab stract. It is an honor for me to give this short paper largely based on my expe riences during 15 years as medical director of a rehabilitation center in Ba varia, as a teacher at two medical schools in Munich and Innsbruck, and as an old-fashioned holistic cardiologist. However, it also is a difficult task for me because the subject of this conference concerning biobehavioral factors in coronary heart disease is controversial, not only in the medical society, but in my own mind as well. When I organized one of the first conferences on stress and coronary heart disease in West Germany in 1976, followed by conferences in 1979 and 1980, the semantic problems between physicians and psychologists were very significant. However, communication has improved in this area during the last decade. The most encouraging event in this field was a sym posium in May 1984 in Rotenburg/Fulda on the topic "Return to Work af ter Bypass Surgery," organized by a cardiac surgeon, Dr. Walter."

Alle im Praxisalltag auftretenden Fragen zur Rehabilitation von Herz- und Gefasspatienten werden in dem Buch ausfuhrlich behandelt. Die Autoren stellen sowohl Moglichkeiten und Grenzen der kardiovaskularen Rehabilitation im stationaren (Anschlussheilbehandlung) als auch im ambulanten Bereich (Herzgruppen) kritisch dar. Dazu gehoren Therapieempfehlungen, mogliche Komplikationen oder Gefahren, Kontraindikationen und die Abwagung, wann welche Massnahme in welcher Institution und bei welchen Patienten sinnvoll einzusetzen ist.
Das Buch wird erganzt durch Empfehlungen fur die personelle, apparative und logistische Ausstattung von Rehabilitationskliniken und ambulanten Herzgruppen. Somit leistet das Buch einen fundierten und praxisbezogenen Beitrag zur kardiologischen Rehabilitationsmedizin.
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