Medical and Social Model of Chronic Cardiovascular System Disease Treatment

Chronic cardiovascular diseases (CVD) impose new challenges to the physician-patient relationship in modern society. The ageing of the population and the social deadaptation necessitate a medical and social model of treatment of the chronic CVD. In the cases of acute conditions, the physician dominates in the treatment process, removes the cause and prevents the consequences. In the cases of chronic conditions, the patient needs are mainly social and psychosocial and not so much medical ones. The chronic patient has got a certain potential of health and adaptation. It is the physician's task to prescribe the treatment, but at the same time to control such potential, to teach the patient how to live with the disease and to improve his or her quality of life. In their everyday life, people look for health, and not for medical care. In that aspect, a number of factors of the social-culturaleconomic model have to be taken into account.