Support of therapy for cardiovascular diseases by telemedical intervention

In industrialized countries, cardiovascular diseases are still the major common cause of death. According to therapy guidelines, both, therapy with medication as well as patient's lifestyle changes are recommended for the prevention and the alleviation of cardiovascular diseases. Nevertheless it has to be mentioned, that especially lifestyle changes require enormous self-management efforts by the patients as they are very hard to maintain without proper control and support. For this reason, a telematic system called COMES^® (Cognitive Medical Systems) has been developed at the Heinz Nixdorf Lehrstuhl für Medizinische Elektronik der Technischen Universität München. COMES^® supports the continuation of life style changes as it collects and utilizes, daily and individually, important data concerning a patient's cardiovascular disease. Thus with COMES^®, e.g. physicians, are able to react immediately to worsening circumstances. Furthermore patients are given an extensive overview of their own rehabilitation process. Finally, with COMES^® it is possible to use therapies in order to avoid medication, for instance by the use of acoustic biofeedback therapy. Thereby, patients can decrease their blood pressure while listening to compositions on the COMES^® streaming server.