I received some very interesting information this morning from Kaylea Livingston of Ohio State University Medical Center and Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
I found that children born with heart defects are all but forgotten when they reach 18.
Caitlyn MacKay underwent heart surgery when she was just 90 days old, for an extensive heart defect. Throughout child-hood she had consistent care; she is living proof of what has been accomplished in recent years.
It is estimated that 30 to 40 thousand children out of a million are now receiving specialized care.
The way health care stands today 95% of the children that have gotten …read more

A new method of measuring blood flow can help to boost the outcome of stents. The measuring of the blood flow can determine where stents need to be implanted.
Studies have shown that this new method is more effective than X-Ray examinations.
If you are considering having this procedure, your health care provider should be made aware of any problems.  Let them know if you have an allergy to shellfish or intravenous dye, have diabetes or kidney disease.
You will find more on this subject by clicking here Angioplasty.

Beautiful animated explanation courtsey MAYO CLINIC

I thought I would share with you one of my most popular posts… It is always a very big topic, since so many do not discuss this with their doctors and nurses due to embarrassment.
Healthbolt has inspired me to write once again about that taboo subject of sexual relations. When I think about it, my discharge teaching with an acute MI patient is focused on nutrition, exercise and lifestyle changes, but doesn’t touch on sex. Don’t you think that should be a valid thought? “When is it safe to have sex again?”
Well, lucky for ya’all, I have done my …read more

The older we get the harder it is for us to make it through surgical procedures and invasive treatments. That is somewhat tongue in cheek due to the fact that as we get older we need more treatment and surgeries. This also proves true for heart patients and more specifically heart valve patients.
There is a minimally invasive Phase II EVEREST clinical trial with the aim of treating malfunctioning heart valves in the elderly.
The new technique, already proven safe by a Phase I clinical trial in 2005, involves only a small incision through the skin in the groin. A small …read more

So you have done everything on your checklist prior to your open heart surgery. Pre-op physical… check… labs… check… packed the bag… check… donated your blood… check- but this is where the question comes into play.
A new US study found that cardiac surgery patients who received blood transfusions of blood that had been stored for 2 weeks or less had lower rates of complications and death than those who received blood that was older.
Were you instructed on when to donate? Did the nurse or case manager that prepared you for surgery advise you that the fresher your blood the …read more

An article in the New York Times discusses the higher than average rate of angioplasties in Elyria, Ohio which is mainly attributed to cardiologists at the local hospital.
Whether the preference for angioplasty is good for the patients of Elyria is open to medical debate. The cardiology group’s leader says the high rate of angioplasties is simply a function of his doctors’ detecting disease more often in their patients than physicians elsewhere might spot, and being quicker to intervene.
With heart disease being the number one killer in industrialized countries, cardiac healthcare easily earns doctors money which could be a motivating force …read more