Heart of the Matter: Techniques Used to Detect the Risk of Heart Disease
Standard diagnostic procedures like an electrocardiogram (EKG) can detect abnormal heartbeats, inadequate blood flow and heart enlargement. A stress test that records the heart beat during exercise finds problems that reveal themselves only when the...
Heart of the Matter: Lowering Your Risk of Heart Disease
There are certain unavoidable risk factors for heart disease, like family history. But there are factors that you can modify to lower your risk of a heart attack: high cholesterol, high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, and physical inactivity. Any...
Heart of the Matter: Atherosclerosis, a Sign of Trouble for the Heart
In an average lifetime, the heart beats more than two and a half billion times, unless coronary heart disease interferes with its functioning. Narrowing of the coronary arteries that supply oxygen and nutrients to the heart is the number one killer ...
Heart of the Matter: Recognizing Heart Attack Symptoms
One-third to one-half of people with coronary heart diseases are stricken unexpectedly with a heart attack, a myocardial infarction. An infarction is an area of heart muscle that dies because it doesn't receive enough oxygen due to insufficient bloo...
Heart of the Matter: Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery
In the procedure known as coronary artery bypass graft surgery, blood vessels are taken from another part of the body and grafted to the aorta, the large artery emerging from the hart. The other ends of the vessels are grafted to the coronary arteri...
Heart of the Matter: Angioplasty Procedure, The
If only one or two of a patient's coronary arteries are narrowed, a physician may suggest an angioplasty procedure. Dr. David Faxon was a young physician in Boston in the early 1980s when he attended a session in which Andreas Greuentzig presented a...
Heart of the Matter: Cardiovascular Care Before and After Heart Attacks
The mission of cardiac specialists is to take patients with known heart disease and aggressively teach them to understand their risk factors and improve their lifestyle Prevention needs to start early in life, but at any stage it makes a difference.
Brain Attack: Story of Karen: Use of the Clot Buster, The
MRI scanning verified that Karen was experiencing an aschemic stroke in which a blood clot blocked blood flow to a region of the brain. tPA, a clot buster was administered. This opens blocked blood vessels and restores blood flow to threatened regio...
Brain Attack: Story of Karen: Expectant Mother, Stroke Victim, The
It was a summer of promise for Karen Christiansen and Ken Jones. After ten years of marriage they were expecting their first child. Karen's pregnancy was almost full term and she was exercising at the Y when she began to exhibit the warning signals ...
Brain Attack: Risk Factors for Stroke
The risk factors for stroke resemble those for other cardiovascular diseases, particularly high blood pressure and hypertension that can be modified by relaxation and dietary interventions. High cholesterol is also thought to be a factor although ma...