A Woman’s Heart Attack Causes, Symptoms May Differ From a Man’s

Posted on by cprworksfl

Hi everyone.  We wanted to share this article from the American Heart Association.  We hope that you take the time to read it and understand how important it is to know the causes and symptoms of a heart attack for a woman.  Please take a few minutes to read this article and under the additional resources, please click on the the link to watch how a heart attack happens.  Then take a CPR class.  YOU COULD SAVE A LIFE!

A woman’s heart attack causes, symptoms may differ from a man’s

American Heart Association Scientific Statement

January 25, 2016 Categories: Heart News

Statement Highlights

  • Women frequently have different underlying causes of heart attacks than men, such as the types of plaque buildup.
  • Compared to men, women tend to be undertreated and are less likely to participate in cardiac rehab after a heart attack.
  • Risk factors such as high blood pressure and diabetes increase heart attack risk in women more severely than in men.

Embargoed until 3 p.m. CT / 4 p.m. ET Monday, January 25, 2016

DALLAS, Monday, January 25, 2016 —A woman’s heart attack may have different underlying causes, symptoms and outcomes compared to men, and differences in risk factors and outcomes are further pronounced in black and Hispanic women, according to a scientific statement published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation.

The statement is the first scientific statement from the American Heart Association on heart attacks in women. It notes that there have been dramatic declines in cardiovascular deaths among women due to improved treatment and prevention of heart disease as well as increased public awareness.

“Despite stunning improvements in cardiovascular deaths over the last decade, women still fare worse than men and heart disease in women remains  underdiagnosed, and undertreated, especially among African-American women,” said writing group chair Laxmi Mehta, M.D., a noninvasive cardiologist and Director of the Women’s Cardiovascular Health Program at The Ohio State University.

Causes:

Heart attacks caused by blockages in the main arteries leading to the heart can occur in both men and women. However, the way the blockages form a blood clot may differ.  Compared to men, women can have less severe blockages  that do not require any stents;  yet the heart’s coronary artery blood vessels are damaged which results in decreased blood flow to the heart muscle.  The result is the same – when blood flow to the heart is decreased for any reason, a heart attack can occur. If doctors don’t correctly diagnose the underlying cause of a woman’ heart attack, they may not be prescribing the right type of treatments after the heart attack.  Medical therapies are similar regardless of the cause of the heart attack or the severity of the blockages. However women are undertreated compared to men despite proven benefits of these medications.

Treatment:

Women face greater complications from attempts to restore blood flow because their blood vessels tend to be smaller, they are older and have increased rates of risk factors, such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Guideline recommended medications are consistently underutilized in women leading to worse outcomes.  Also, cardiac rehabilitation is prescribed less frequently for women and even when it is prescribed,  women are less likely to participate in it or complete it.

Symptoms:

While the most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort for both sexes, women are more likely to have atypical symptoms such as shortness of breath, nausea or vomiting, and back or jaw pain.

Risk factors:

Risk factors for heart attacks also differ in degree of risk in men compared to women. For example, high blood pressure is more strongly associated with heart attacks in women and if a young woman has diabetes her risk for heart disease is 4 to 5 times higher compared to young men.

Racial differences:

Compared to white women, black women have a higher incidence  of heart attacks in all age categories and young black women have higher in-hospital death rates.  Black and Hispanic women tend to have more heart- related risk factors such as diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure at the time of their heart attack compared to non-Hispanic white women.   Compared to white women, black women are also less likely to be referred for important treatments such as cardiac catheterization..

Understanding gender differences can help improve prevention and treatment among women. “Women should not be afraid to ask questions – we advise all women to have more open and candid discussions with their doctor about both medication and interventional  treatments to prevent and treat a heart attack,” Mehta said.

“Coronary heart disease afflicts 6.6 million American women annually and remains the leading threat to the lives of women. Helping women prevent and survive heart attacks through increased research and improving ethnic and racial disparities in prevention and treatment is a public health priority,” she said.

Statement co-authors are Theresa Beckie, Ph.D.; Holli DeVon, Ph.D., R.N.; Cindy Grines, M.D.; Harlan Krumholz, M.D., S.M.; Michelle Johnson, M.D., M.P.H.; Kathryn Lindley, M.D.; Viola Vaccarino, M.D., Ph.D.; Tracy Wang, M.D., M.H.S., M.Sc.; Karol Watson, M.D., Ph.D.; Nanette Wenger, M.D.

Author disclosures are on the manuscript.

Additional Resources:

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Statements and conclusions of study authors published in American Heart Association scientific journals are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect the association’s policy or position. The association makes no representation or guarantee as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available atwww.heart.org/corporatefunding.

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This article was sourced from:  http://newsroom.heart.org/news/a-womans-heart-attack-causes-symptoms-may-differ-from-a-mans?preview=7dd7

 

96 minutes of CPR

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96 minutes of CPR – and living to tell the tale

Posted by stacytheobald, Jul 22, 2011

Howard Snitzer will be the first to tell you he’s a lucky man.
“I just wish I’d won the lottery instead,” he says, jokingly. But Snitzer knows his good fortune netted him something much more valuable: his life.
Snitzer, a 54-year-old chef, miraculously survived a cardiac arrest thanks to a flawless and unrelenting response from nearly two dozen emergency personnel, including many volunteer first responders. The group took turns performing CPR on Snitzer for 96 minutes, more than 30 minutes longer than previously documented out-of-hospital cardiac arrest durations.
Snitzer’s story begins one cold evening in January, when he headed to Don’s Foods in rural Goodhue, Minn., to buy a tank of propane for his grill. But Snitzer never made it inside. Instead, he experienced cardiac arrest and fell to the ground on the sidewalk just outside the store.
Howard Snitzer
Veteran first responders
Here’s where his luck starts to change. From inside Don’s, clerk Carol Skrypek and shopper Candace Koehn saw Snitzer fall. Skrypek immediately called 911. Brothers Roy and Al Lodermeier – veteran first responders – came running from their auto shop across the street.
Al Lodermeier and Koehn, a CPR-trained corrections officer, began performing CPR, while Roy Lodermeier went to the Goodhue firehouse to get a rescue truck and gear. Soon, volunteer firefighters, police, and rescue squads from the neighboring towns of Zumbrota and Red Wing arrived.
After 34 minutes, a Mayo One flight crew landed at the scene and was stunned to see the long line of rescuers taking turns performing CPR.
“Everything had gone right before we arrived,” says Bruce Goodman, a flight paramedic. But as the minutes ticked by, he began to lose hope.
“We couldn’t get Mr. Snitzer out of v-fib,” says Goodman. “V-fib” – ventricular fibrillation – is an abnormal heart rhythm that prevents the heart from pumping blood. Electrical shocks from a defibrillator can sometimes correct the rhythm. So can certain medications. Snitzer’s rescuers tried both, shocking him 11 times and pumping numerous drugs into his system. Still, the abnormal rhythm persisted.
Goodman called Roger White, M.D., an anesthesiologist at Mayo Clinic and a world-renowned expert in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest intervention, four times as they worked on Snitzer.
By the last call, “I was pretty discouraged,” says Dr.White. “We were right against the wall.”
A calculated risk
Finally, Dr. White advised a calculated overdose of the heart drug amiodarone, followed by another shock with the defibrillator. The combination worked.
Goodman wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
“I thought we’d revived someone who in my opinion couldn’t survive what he’d been through,” says Goodman. “He’d been down an hour and a half. The likelihood of him walking out of the hospital with any kind of life in my mind was zero.”
A few days later, Goodman followed up on his patient, expecting to find out that Snitzer had died. Instead, he had a room number at Saint Marys Hospital on Mayo Clinic’s Rochester campus. Goodman and the rest of the Mayo One crew visited Snitzer.
“I expected he’d be weak, sitting in his room,” says Goodman. “But he was sitting out in a visitor’s lounge with his brother. He stood up and greeted us when we came.”
That visit marked the first time Snitzer heard the remarkable story of his rescue. “I sat there with my jaw in my lap,” he says. “The first thing I said was, ‘Why didn’t you stop?'”
Dr. White says several factors contributed to the team’s persistence.
Tool to measure blood flow “The cardiac arrest was witnessed, and we knew that high-quality CPR had been started almost immediately after the event,” says Dr. White. “During the resuscitation, Mr. Snitzer was showing visible signs of life, including raising his arms. And we also had data that confirmed blood was flowing through his lungs to his brain.”
That data was supplied by a capnograph, an instrument that measures how much blood is flowing through the lungs and, thereby, to other organs. It’s frequently used to monitor patients in operating rooms, but is not commonly used by emergency personnel when treating cardiac arrest.
“The effort was successful in large part because of capnography, which informed us that if we persisted, it was conceivable we’d have a survivor on our hands,” says Dr. White. “This case shows the value of using real-time technology like capnography, which can confirm the effectiveness of CPR.”
“The initial intervention was key to his survival, hands down,” says Goodman. “The equipment and interventions we as paramedics bring to the table are great, but we’d never have had a chance to use them if someone hadn’t been getting oxygen to Mr. Snitzer’s  brain right away with CPR.”It also demonstrates the value of CPR.
Though he doesn’t relish the spotlight, Snitzer continues to tell his story as a way to help spread the word about CPR.
“After surviving this, I’m still trying to figure out what my purpose is,” he says. “I know I want to help whoever I can, and to do something meaningful. Hopefully telling my story will give a new jolt to CPR.”
Thank you for taking the time to read the article.
You can follow us at www.facebook.com/cprworksfl
You also can get registered for a CPR / AED class so that you are prepared for any cardiac emergency at www.cprworksfl.com
Original article posted at:  http://sharing.mayoclinic.org/discussion/96-minutes-of-cpr-and-living-to-tell-the-tale
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Heart Attack or Sudden Cardiac Arrest?

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Heart Attack or Sudden Cardiac Arrest?

Do you know the difference between a heart attack and sudden cardiac arrest?

Today, we will discuss the difference.

A myocardial infarction, commonly known as a heart attack, is a medical emergency that occurs when a portion of the heart is deprived of oxygen because of blockage of one of the coronary arteries, which supply the heart muscle (myocardium) with blood.

Symptoms of a myocardial infarction may include:

  • Chest pain
  • Pain in other parts of your upper body including one or both arms, your      back, neck, jaw or abdomen
  • Nausea or stomach cramping
  • Dizziness
  • Cold Sweat
  • Shortness of breath

Sudden cardiac arrest occurs suddenly and often without warning. It is triggered by an electrical malfunction in the heart that causes an irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia). With its pumping action disrupted, the heart cannot pump blood to the brain, lungs and other organs. Seconds later, a person loses consciousness and has no pulse. Death occurs within minutes if the victim does not receive treatment.
Symptoms of sudden cardiac arrest:
  • Sudden collapse
  • No pulse
  • No breathing
  • Loss of consciousness

So heart attack or myocardial infarction (MI) is a circulation problem with the heart and sudden cardiac arrest is an electrical complication with the heart.

Call 911 and get help fast.

Image sourced from www.defibssavelives.org