This made me sit up and take notice since I used to work nights in the hospital…

The graveyard shift is the worst time to call code blue, a new study finds. Patients who go into cardiac arrest while in the hospital are more likely to die if it happens after 11 p.m., when staffing may be lower or patients are watched less closely.

The ER is the only place that there was no difference in death rates. Among day shifts in all other units hospital wide the success rate of patients that cardiac arrested was 20% and the night shift rate was 15%. Either way it is not real good odds but I would take the first over the latter.

Why the difference? I would suppose most would blame it on fatigue and lower staff numbers. Interesting enough, while weekends had lower success rated then weekdays they were not nearly as pronounced as night versus day.

via Houston Chronicle

Remember when beloved Cheers and Frasier star Kelsey Grammer had a ’small’ heart attack last month. Well, he is back in the hospital. It is so scary. Even for celebrities- remember they are real people as well.  He had just come out last week and stated how scary his heart attack was. Mr. Grammer said that he almost died and that his heart actually stopped and needed to be hit twice to revive him.

Television star Kelsey Grammer is back in hospital with an irregular heartbeat, two months after suffering a heart attack the actor has said nearly killed him.

Kelsey presented to the hospital feeling faint and tired. Most likely his irregular heart beat is caused by his medication he is taking to help with his heart muscle and post MI effects. Good luck to him- hope he is back on his feet soon!

via Comcast 

Here is something that should make you smile. Optimism is good for heart health. Yes… emotional wellbeing. I know that so many disregard how we as patients and people are felling and coping, but it is so important! I am a firm believer.

Optimism is good for heart health, at least among men, a new study shows. University of Rochester Medical Center researcher Robert Gramling, M.D., D.Sc., found that men who believed they were at lower-than-average risk for cardiovascular disease actually experienced a three times lower incidence of death from heart attacks and strokes.

The same results were not found among women but the study was started in 1990- which was a time before heart disease became so prevalent among women. There just wasn’t as many women in the study to begin with.

Perhaps we should concentrate on the fact that we have so many tools to help prevent a heart attack instead of worrying ourselves sick over if we will actually fall victim to one.

via Science Daily 

Kelsey Grammer suffered a heart attack this weekend…

Sources say Kelsey was swimming on the beach in Kona when he had the attack and that his heart definitely stopped for a few seconds. The Cheers star had to be airlifted by helicopter from Kona to Honolulu for tests and treatment.

Hopefully he will bounce right back. Get well… I loved Cheers!!!!!!

via Perez Hilton

There is a great service offered by the American Heart Association, Heart Profilers.

You or a loved one can become more involved in your care by reviewing treatment options, possible side effects, success rates and questions to ask your healthcare provider. You also have access to medical journal articles and research studies written in an easy-to-understand format.

It is a personal ‘game plan’ and easy to understand info that pertains to your unique situation and treatment plan. It only takes about 20 minutes to really get going. Great tool- if anyone uses it or gives it a try please let me know.

We know that erectile dysfunction is a manifestation of cardiovascular disease and can predict events such as heart attacks and stroke. Well, researchers decided to take a peek at post menopausal women and the correlation of heart disease and sexual dissatisfaction.

“Our study of sexually active postmenopausal women found dissatisfaction with sexual activity was not predictive of incident cardiovascular disease which may be due to physiological differences in sexual functioning between men and women, or to difficulty measuring sexual dysfunction in women,” added McCall-Hosenfeld.

This is a good thing I suppose. At least the women will feel safe in knowing that their displeasure with sex will not lead to a heart attack. But they will also have to get to the root of their issue, which is sometimes very frustrating.

via SD 

There are so many new studies each and every day and at times it seems that the second totally discredits the first. So that is why I am posing this question to you…

How many of you out there have attended a heart rehabilitation physical therapy program post heart attack or catheterization? I know that each and every program is different although they offer a similar guidelines. I have personally experienced, while working as a cardiac nurse, some great, and I mean great, rehab programs. They were very involved and intense.

Each patient was hooked up to a heart monitor while they rode the bike, elliptical or walked the treadmill. Most patient’s participated in lifting low amounts of weight. And every single rehab patient took a mandatory diet and nutrition class taught by a registered dietitian.

Another plus about the programs that I experienced first hand was the importance of family and friend involvement. It takes a village…

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