RESULTS Demographic data and functional variables in all the patients with congestive heart failure are summarised in table 1. Most of the patients were male and retired or unemployed, despite the fact that their mean age was rather low, with 88.8% of the patients being younger than 65 years of age (range19–74years).Themajorityofthepatients(88.2%)were in NYHA functional class II or III, and almost all were being