February is heart month, a time to raise awareness around preventing cardiovascular diseases, promoting heart health and supporting research into treatments for and causes of, various heart conditions.
In our guide, we list the most common conditions, risk factors, and what you can do to keep your heart healthy.
What is Cardiovascular Heart Disease (CVD)?
CVD is an umbrella term for a range of conditions, affecting the heart and blood vessels.
Symptoms of cardiovascular disease (CVD) will depend on the condition you have, however some conditions can even be symptomless.
Approximately, over 8 million people are living with cardiovascular disease in the UK.
The Most Common Types of CVD are:
1.Coronary Heart Disease – This is where your arteries become blocked by a build up of fat, making it hard for blood to flow to and from your heart.
The main symptoms include:
- chest pain (angina)
- shortness of breath
- feeling faint or nauseous.
CHD is responsible for around 63,000 deaths in the UK, or on average, one death every eight minutes.
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2.Stroke – This is where blood suddenly stops flowing to a part of your brain due to a blockage, which can affect your speech and movement.
The easiest way to remember the symptoms of a stroke is FAST, which stands for face, arm, speech, time (to call 999):
- face weakness – one side of your face may droop (fall) and it might be hard to smile
- arm weakness – you may not be able to fully lift both arms
- speech problems – you may slur your words or sound confused
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3.Heart Attack – this is a serious medical emergency where blood flow to the heart is suddenly blocked, usually by a blood clot.
Symptoms include:
- Chest pain, shortness of breath
- Feeling or being sick,
- Pain in other parts of your body (you feel as if the pain is spreading from your chest to your arms).
- Feeling lightheaded or dizzy
- An overwhelming feeling of anxiety, similar to a panic attack
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4.Heart Failure – this usually means the heart is unable to pump blood around the body properly.
This doesn’t mean your heart has stopped working, rather it needs some support to help it work better.
Symptoms include:
- Breathlessness after activity or rest
- Feeling tired most of the time
- Feeling lightheaded
- Swollen ankles and legs.
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5.Vascular Dementia– this is where there is a reduced blood flow to the brain, which causes gradual change and damage to the brain
Symptoms include: slowness of thought, difficulty planning, understanding and concentrating, feeling disorientated and confused.
Vascular dementia is the second most common type of dementia, seen in at least one in five cases.
6.Other conditions that affect the heart and blood include:
- Congenital heart disease
- High LDL cholesterol
- Atrial Fibrillation
Every 5 minutes, someone is admitted to a UK hospital due to a heart attack.
Risk Factors
- High Blood Pressure or hypertension is the leading modifiable risk factor for CVD in the UK, and is linked to around 80,000 cardiovascular deaths each year. It is also known as a silent killer, due to its lack of symptoms.
- Diabetes – this can cause damage to the inner lining of blood vessels, due to your blood sugar levels being elevated for a prolonged period of time, therefore diabetes is a significant risk factor of CVD.
- High LDL Cholesterol – Having high LDL cholesterol can increase your risk of a heart attack.
- Smoking – the chemicals in cigarettes make the walls of your arteries sticky, which can cause fatty material to stick and begin to clog your arteries. These clogs can lead to high blood pressure, a heart attack or a stroke.
- Obesity – excess weight can lead to fatty material building up in your arteries, which increases your risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes.
- Ethnicity – you may be more likely to get CVD if you’re from a South Asian, Black African or African Caribbean ethnic background
Prevention
To reduce your risk of developing CVD, you should aim to:
- eat a healthy, balanced diet
- reduce the amount of fatty foods you eat
- try to exercise regularly – Around 33% of adults in the UK do not meet physical activity recommendations.
- try to keep to a healthy weight
- cut down on alcohol
- quit smoking
Medications/Treatments
Statins are a type of medication that helps reduce your LDL (bad) cholesterol. Your doctor may recommend this medication to you if you have a type of CVD, or your personal or family history suggests that you may develop CVD in the near future.
Other medications that are used to treat CVD include:
- Blood Thinners – these reduce the risk of a heart attack by thinning your blood and preventing it from clotting
- Beta Blockers – these are often used to treat angina and high blood pressure, by affecting a particular hormone in the body which slows down your heartbeat.
Some people require surgical procedures to manage their CVD symptoms:
- Coronary Angioplasty – this is a surgical procedure, in which a mental stent (a wire mesh tube) is placed in the artery to hold it open. This is usually a treatment option for angina, or can be used as an emergency procedure, for example, after a heart attack.
- Pacemaker – this is a small electrical device that is surgically implanted in the chest- it sends electrical signals to the heart to keep it beating regularly
- Heart Transplant – when the heart is severely damaged and medicine is not effective, or when the heart becomes unable to adequately pump blood around the body, a heart transplant may be needed.
How Broomfield Care Can Help You
At Broomfield Care, we provide support to adults in the Gloucestershire area, within the comfort of their own homes. We provide a number of services, ranging from personal and specialist care, to welfare checks and social visits.
If you are a suffering with a chronic condition, such as CVD, we may be able to help you. For example, we can help you get ready in the morning, help with medication management and prompts to take medications, or even just to do some light domestic chores. To find out more, contact us today or visit our website here.
