HEART/STROKE 101
Know the common heart ailments
BY:BETH POLAZZO
Three common heart ailments are the classic heart attack (myocardial infarction or MI), cardiac arrhythmias and congestive heart failure. What are they and how do they affect your loved one?
Heart Attack
Myocardial Infarction (MI) occurs when one of the three coronary arteries that supply oxygen-rich blood to the heart muscle becomes severely or totally blocked, usually from a blood clot. The severity of the attack depends on how much of the heart is damaged.
Warning Signs
According to the Mayo Clinic, signs and symptoms of a heart attack include:
Pressure, fullness or a squeezing pain in the center of
the chest that lasts for more than a few minutes
Pain extending beyond the chest to the shoulder,
arm, back or even to the teeth and jaw
Increasing episodes of chest pain
Prolonged pain in the upper abdomen
Shortness of breath
Sweating
Impending sense of doom
Fainting
Nausea and vomiting
For women, signs and symptoms may be different or less noticeable than those in men. In addition tothe symptoms above, female-specific symptoms include:
Abdominal pain or heartburn
Clammy skin
Light-headedness or dizziness
Unusual or unexplained fatigue
Not all people who have an MI experience the same symptoms or experience them to the same degree; some people have no symptoms at all. Still, the more signs and symptoms you have, the greater the likelihood that you may be having an attack. The earliest MI predictor may be recurrent chest pain (angina) that's triggered by exertion and relieved by rest. Angina is caused by temporary, insufficient blood flow to the heart, also known as cardiac ischemia.
Risk Factors
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), certain risk factors make it more likely that someone will develop coronary artery disease (CAD) and have a heart attack. Some risk factors for heart attack can be controlled, while others can't.
Major controllable factors include:
Smoking
High blood pressure
High blood cholesterol
Being overweight, obesity
Physical inactivity
Diabetes (high blood sugar)
Major uncontrollable risk factors include:
Age (risk increases for men older than 45 and
post-menopausal women over 55)
Family history of early CAD (risk increases if your
father or a brother was diagnosed with CAD before age 55,
or if your mother or a sister was diagnosed before age 65)
Certain CAD risk factors tend to occur together. When they do, it's called metabolic syndrome. Ingeneral, a person with metabolic syndrome is twice as likely to develop heart disease and five times as likely to develop diabetes as someone without metabolic syndrome.
Arrhythmias
Arrhythmias are heartbeat irregularities ranging from relatively insignificant palpitations to life-threatening cardiac collapse. All are caused by a malfunctioning of the heart's electrical system.
Warning Signs
There may be no noticeable signs or symptoms of arrhythmia, and the appearance of symptoms does not necessarily indicate a serious problem, according to the Mayo Clinic. In fact,a doctor might detect them during a routine exam before the patient is ever aware of a problem. But noticeable signs and symptoms include:
A fluttering in the chest
A racing heartbeat
A slow heartbeat
Chest pain
Shortness of breath
Light-headedness
Dizziness
Fainting or near fainting
Cardiac collapse
Causes
When anything happens to disturb or interrupt the normal functioning of the heart's electrical system, problems with cardiac rhythm result. There are a variety of underlying and often interrelated conditions that can cause cardiac-rhythm problems, including:
Problems related to the electrical system itself
Lack of blood flow to the living tissues of the electrical
system such as that produced by CAD
Congenital abnormalities
The effect of underlying disease states or conditions,
such as CAD or valve disease, stress or even the flu
The result of self-induced factors, such as excessive intake of
caffeine, alcohol, cough/cold medications, diet pills or smoking.
Congestive Heart Failure
Congestive Heart Failure occurs when the heart can no longer pump enough blood to the lungs and throughout the body. It usually occurs over many years and is caused by an underlying condition such as CAD, heart-valve leakage or various diseases of the heart muscle itself.
Warning Signs
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), symptoms and signs of congestive heart failure include:
Weight gain
Swelling of feet and ankles
Swelling of the abdomen
Pronounced neck veins
Loss of appetite, indigestion
Nausea and vomiting
Shortness of breath withactivity, or after lying down for a while
Difficulty sleeping
Fatigue, weakness, faintness
Palpitations
Irregular or rapid pulse
Decreased alertness or concentration
Cough
Decreased urine production
Need to urinate at night
Some patients with heart failure have no symptoms. In these people, the symptoms may develop only with the onset of:
Infections with high fever
Arrhythmias
Risk Factors
Heart failure becomes more common with advancing age. Risk-increasing factors include obesity, diabetes, smoking, alcohol abuse or cocaine use. According to the Mayo Clinic, a single risk factor may be enough to cause heart failure, but a combination of factors increases risk. Other risk factors include:
High blood pressure
CAD
Heart attack
Irregular heartbeats
Diabetes and some diabetes medications
Sleep apnea
Congenital heart defects
Viruses
Kidney conditions