Rehabilitation is a necessary step in the process of recovery from most serious illness and from many clinical interventions. The nature of rehabilitation, and the form of any programme of rehabilitation provided to help patients with this process, depends greatly on patient, illness, treatment or intervention, co-morbidity and on the availability of appropriate services. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in most developed countries and acute myocardial infarction (MI) is a major cause of acute medical admissions to hospitals, and revascularization by coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) is a leading surgical intervention. Both MI and CABG involve a day or more in intensive care followed by several days recuperation in hospital. There is a fairly obvious case for rehabilitation for patients surviving the truly life-threatening experience of MI (20% sudden deaths and a further 10% die within 24 hours of onset of pain), and for patients following the major ‘trauma’ of open heart surgery (operative mortality about 1%). The specific needs of these two groups may differ because their experiences differ; one medical the other surgical, and, possibly more significantly, one unexpected, the other planned.