HEART AND STROKE: The Power of TLC
The Power of TLC
Following doctor’s orders after having suffered from heart failure can be difficult. The patient may be taking half a dozen medications and must keep a strict watch on diet and weight. Who’s the best person to turn to for help?
A study at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City found that nurses are the answer. During an 18-month test project, nurses coached individual patients on how to manage their symptoms and how to follow their medication and diet regimens. When necessary, they also arranged for changes in medication and tests.
These patients found it much easier to go about their everyday lives than the control group in the test. They also were hospitalized much less often. But, after the study ended, patients who no longer had access to the nurses deteriorated at about the same rate as those in the control group.
“Self-management of this disease can mean slowing the progression,” says Mary Ann McLaughlin, MD, co-director of the Women's Cardiovascular Assessment and Risk Evaluation Program at Mount Sinai and co-author of the study, which was published in the August 15, 2006, Annals of Internal Medicine.
Numbers You Can Count On
Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic reported that aggressively treating hypertension can reverse coronary artery disease. In addition to exercise and diet changes, this most often means prescribing drugs such as diuretics, beta blockers, and ACE (angiotensin converting enzyme) inhibitors, just to name a few.
Current blood-pressure guidelines call for systolic pressure below 140 and diastolic pressure below 90. This two-year study, reported in the August 15, 2006, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, found patients with levels above those developed arterial plaque, which clogs the blood vessels.
However, in patients whose systolic pressure readings between 120 and 139 and diastolic readings between 80 and 90, the amount of plaque remained constant. Study subjects whose blood pressure was lower than 120/80 showed an actual decline.