Tag: cardiomyopathy

Medical How It Works Saving the Heart

There is no cure for congestive heart failure, but there are things that you can do to help prolong your life and protect your heart from farther damage. Treatment is a matter of changing your lifestyle and drug therapy, which will change your quality of life. The medical field improvement over the past twenty years has grown in leaps and bounds. Lifestyle changes are the same quit smoking, losing excess weight, drinking less alcohol, and eating healthy low saturated fat and low salt foods. Then do not forget to exercise which is helpful for most patients. This is good advice that is a key to preventing heart failure but the most important is the medical. This is where your physician is very important do not attempt to try to prescribe your own medicines. The physician is well equipped to provide you with the proper medical treatment.

The heart like other parts of our bodies can malfunction in different ways. That is why we should trust the cardiologist a specialist in the medical field. One of the most common medicines prescribed for patients is a beta-blocker. The beta-blocker reduces the heart rate and output of blood by counteracting a hormone called noradrenalin. While this drug can prevent heart failure, it is not recommended for anyone with severe heart failure.

Patients who suffer from fluid retention and/or high blood pressure the medical field suggests that a diuretic will help compensate but some of the side effects is loss of potassium, weakness, muscle cramps, and joint pains. Let your doctor know right away if you feel any ill effects from the diuretic.

This is just an example of some drugs used by the medical field that can help prevent heart failure. There are other treatments that the medical field uses are just as valuable.
Congestive heart failure can become quiet extreme that is why the medical field has been experimenting with heart transplants and mechanical pumps, which are attached to the heart. There is another experimental procedure for severe heart failure, which is available at a few U.S. medical centers. This procedure, called cardiomyoplasty, involves detaching one end of a muscle in the back, wrapping it around the heart, and then suturing the muscle to the heart. An implanted electric stimulator causes the back muscle to contract and pump blood from the heart.

The medical field has also another surgical procedure called mitral valve repair may help extend and improve the lives of people with congestive heart failure. This procedure aims to correct leaky valves resulting from cardiomyopathy, or heart muscle disease, by surgically inserting a flexible annuloplasty ring at the mitral valve opening.

The medical field has made great strides in medicines and in surgical procedures that greatly increase the quality of life, we have. The medical field has experimented with such things as healthy heart diets and specialized exercises that can only help to improve quality of life. Now it is up to you it is your heart!

How Can Genes Contribute to and Cure Congestive Heart Failure?

How Can Genes Contribute to and Cure Congestive Heart Failure?

It is common knowledge that heart failure follows another severe form of heart damage; however, until now scientists and doctors have had no way to identify those at risk. New research into genes and gene therapy have made them a potential weapon in the fight against heart failure.
Scientists have made several discoveries regarding the role of genes in the detection and treatment of heart failure. Several years ago it was discovered that a small percentage of patients who had suffered heart failure possessed a defect in the gene that allows the body to detect stress signals; in essence, the heart does not know that it is working to hard and is unable to adjust. This percentage may seem insignificant; however, the gene mutation was not present in any of the healthy patients examined. Researchers stress that this is a susceptibility factor, not a cause of congestive heart failure; however, it may be the breaking point when determining if a heart suffering from other disease will fail. Detection of this mutation may allow doctors to identify and treat patients at risk prior to their heart failing rather than after.

This defect is found in the ATP-sensitive potassium channels and is caused by a genetic mutation. The potassium channel regulates potassium and calcium levels in the body. While the heart must have calcium to function, an excess of calcium leads to damage. This is the reason calcium blockers are often given to patients with congestive heart failure. Fortunately, medications to open the potassium channel already exist.

In addition, a defect of the delta-sarcoglycan gene has been seen in hamsters with muscular dystrophy and cardiomyopathy. This gene is the cytoskeleton of muscle fibers, and successful transplant of a normal human delta-sarcoglycan gene has been shown to cause a tremendous improvement in these animals. This is noteworthy because current transplant attempts require open heart surgery. This type of gene transplant is carried on a virus, eliminating the need for surgery.

Scientists had been a bit concerned with using this method of gene therapy due to the need for a systemic effect. There was also some concern that the body’s natural immune system would eliminate the virus of its own accord prior to successful delivery of the gene; however, they believe they have found the best form of virus to successfully slip past the body’s defenses. When transplanting the delta-sarcoglycan gene researchers used a type eight adeno-associated virus, piggybacking the corrective gene onto it as it was inserted into the body. This allowed the gene to be carried to all areas of the body in animals with muscular dystrophy without being destroyed by the body’s own natural immunity.

Gene therapy is still highly experimental, and researchers are unsure yet of the role it will play in the conquest of heart failure; however, this represents a technology that was unavailable thirty years ago. Continuing advancements in technology and medicine’s knowledge of the body’s building blocks may one day unlock the mysteries to the cure of this deadly disease.

What Physiotherapy Has to Do with Cardiac Surgery

One may feel fatigued and sore after cardiac surgery; it is only natural. On the other hand, it seems altogether strange to think of embarking on a course of physiotherapy afterwards instead of just resting. Yet, that is just what is recommended.

Types of cardiac surgery include bypass surgeries, angioplasty, stents, heart valve replacements, and even heart transplants. Patients having all of these surgeries can benefit from physiotherapy. Patients who have other cardiac problems can use the help too; they include victims of heart attacks, heart failure, peripheral artery disease, chest pain, and cardiomyopathy.

Physiotherapy will usually begin within a couple of weeks of cardiac surgery, if not sooner. The first step is for nurses or doctors to administer a stress test to determine how much exercise one can handle. This involves walking on a treadmill or riding on a stationary bike while having one’s vital signs monitored.

When the data is gathered and analyzed, a program of physical therapy will be put into place. For safety’s sake, it is often the routine to bring cardiac surgery patients into the hospital or an outpatient clinic for their exercise at first.

Under the watchful eyes of nurses and physiotherapy personnel, cardiac surgery patients will be looked after as they perform their exercises. This way the professionals will be alerted if the cardiac surgery patient is having troublesome symptoms. The exercises done are cardiovascular exercises like walking on a treadmill or riding a stationary bike.

After the initial period of the monitored physiotherapy has passed, cardiac surgery patients will be sent to do their exercising at home. Before they go, though, they will have been taught warm-up and stretching exercises, and when to stop. Generally, they should exercise three to five times a week unless they are having problems.

Swimming is another form of exercise that is especially good for cardiac surgery patients. It is a cardiovascular exercise that is not hard on the joints, so it will often be kept up longer. The only thing to remember is that all wounds must be completely healed first.

Physiotherapy for cardiac surgery patients is often not carried out by physiotherapy staff. Nurses in hospitals and clinics who are trained to deal with these areas of rehabilitation for cardiac surgery will do the work. However, physiotherapists sometimes help, and the principles are the same.

The physiotherapist will instruct the patient about what activities are acceptable in the weeks and months after surgery. During the first six weeks, there will only be a few activities allowed, such as light housekeeping or going to movies, for example. From then until the third month, more activities will be added. You may be able to return to work, at least part-time, you may be able to drive. After this time, your physiotherapist will work with you to ease you back into all your old activities.

If a patient has cardiac surgery and then does nothing to regain strength, that patient will soon weaken. Physiotherapy offers a means to stay in shape, or get into shape. It lends more purpose to the cardiac surgery by making the patient much healthier than before the surgery ever took place.