Long-term study on aftercare for heart attacks

How effective is the care of heart attack patients - and can it reduce the risk of suffering another heart attack? This is one of the questions that the University of Oldenburg and the Bremen Heart Foundation will be working on together in future as part of a co-operation. Heart attacks are one of the most common causes of death in Germany. For those who survive it, medical aftercare, combined with rehabilitation measures, is essential. But how effective is the care of heart attack patients - and can it reduce the risk of suffering another heart attack? The University of Oldenburg and the BREMER HERZEN FOUNDATION are now working together on this question. "Intensive long-term prevention programme after heart attacks in north-west Germany" (IPP for short) is the title of their study, which will run for several years and is being financially supported by the BREMER HERZEN FOUNDATION - and which is part of a fundamental co-operation that the University and the BREMER HERZEN FOUNDATION recently agreed with the signing of a co-operation agreement.

The University's School of Medicine, the Computing Science Institute OFFIS and the Oldenburg Heart Centre are involved in this co-operation. From Bremen, the Clinic for Cardiology and Angiology at the Klinikum Links der Weser (KLdW) and the Bremen Institute for Cardiovascular Research (BIHKF) are also involved.

"With this cooperation, the university and the foundation are dedicating themselves to the important field of cardiovascular diseases - and to the question of how aftercare can be further improved," said the acting university president Prof Dr Katharina Al-Shamery at the signing of the agreement. The co-operation will provide important impetus for the medical focus on healthcare research that is currently being established at the university.

"The co-operation agreement between the University of Oldenburg and the Bremen Institute for Cardiovascular Research of the Bremer Herzen Foundation lays the foundation not only for joint scientific projects, but also for close collaboration in the academic field," said the Chairman of the Foundation's Board of Directors, Prof. Dr Rainer Hambrecht. "This will make it possible to implement practical and clinically relevant research projects in the north-west metropolitan region for the first time."

The cooperation partners plan to have the first results of the study, for which scientists will follow 300 patients over the course of a year, available at the beginning of 2016. The authors use a so-called prevention score to determine the respective cardiological risk. Their analyses allow conclusions to be drawn about how medical behavioural recommendations and measures affect patients' health.

The study marks the beginning of the co-operation between the university and the foundation. Prof Dr
H.-Jürgen Appelrath, Vice Dean for Health Services Research at the School of Medicine, was recently appointed to the Foundation's Board of Trustees. "I see the co-operation with Bremen as a very good addition to the long-standing collaboration with the cardiology department at Oldenburg Hospital under the direction of Prof. Dr Albrecht Elsässer in the field of cardiological information systems," says Appelrath. The cooperation agreement allows for further joint projects in research and teaching. In future, for example, doctoral and post-doctoral candidates working at the Klinikum Links der Weser and the Bremen Institute of Cardiovascular Research will be able to take part in university and medical didactic training programmes at the university as well as teaching on the model degree course in human medicine.


NOTE:
The Bremen Heart Foundation is organising the Bremen Heart Days on 16 and 17 May - on Saturday with an information and action day on the subject of heart-healthy nutrition and exercise. Click here for the programme.