RESEARCHERS in York are developing life-saving rehabilitation techniques thanks to more than £200,000 of funding from the British Heart Foundation (BHF).

The BHF Care and Education Research Group, based at the University of York and led by Professor Bob Lewin, has been launched to improve cardiac rehabilitation - a simple technique which has been shown to prolong life and reduce the need for surgery.

Studies show that attending a rehabilitation programme reduces early deaths by 25 per cent, the same result as taking drugs such as beta blockers and aspirin.

Rehabilitation involves improving diet and exercise routines, developing relaxation techniques, educating people about their condition and dispelling myths about heart disease.

Professor Lewin said that some angina sufferers wrongly believed that exercise was harmful to their condition and by remaining inactive were actually making their condition worse. Currently only about one-third of patients who have had a heart attack are rehabilitated in this way.

The unit will receive £72,000 annually for three years - and potentially beyond - to develop further rehabilitation methods, expanding into areas such as children's congenital heart disease.

The unit will also help the BHF monitor the use of its patient support groups, assess funded programmes for nurses and evaluate innovative BHF-sponsored nursing roles.

Professor Lewin, who has already developed the York Angina Plan and the Heart Manual, which are both used in the York area and across the United Kingdom, said there was so much that a patient could do for themselves, if shown how.

He said: "We try to help people better understand and better live with what is, unfortunately, in most cases, a long term illness.

"Doctors are so busy treating the physical problems such as a blocked artery, they put less emphasis on anxiety, depression and worry, even though anxious or depressed cardiac patients cost four times as much to treat as non-depressed patients - a situation that has nothing to do with how severe their condition is."

Tony Doveston, BHF regional director for Northern England, said: "All the work the unit is doing is to improve the whole business of rehabilitation, to get people thinking positively and to get the mechanisms in place. Things like positive thinking are so key to a quick recovery."

Updated: 10:49 Wednesday, May 28, 2003