MOBILIZATION AFTER HEART ATTACK

The usual duration of hospitalization for an uncomplicated Heart Attack is about 5 days. The remainder of the convalescent phase may be accomplished at home. During the first 2 weeks, the patient should be encouraged to increase activity by walking about the house and outdoors in good weather. Normal sexual activity may be resumed during this period. After 2 weeks, the physician must regulate the patient’s activity on the basis of exercise tolerance. Most patients will be able to return to work within 2 to 4 weeks.

WAYS TO ENHANCE YOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL RECOVERY AFTER HEART ATTACK

·         Understanding your condition: Having a heart attack does not mean you will have another. Look at the heart attack as a warning that you should seriously consider changing your lifestyle to reduce your risk of future problems.

·         Stay active: Don’t fall for the common myths that say people with heart disease shouldn’t drive, exert themselves, or have sexual intercourse.

Follow your doctor’s prescription for your individual level of activity. Exercise should be high on your list of things to do. Activity affirms that you’re still alive and not an invalid.

·         Socialize, get involved: Interact and exchange information and experience with other people who are also learning to live. It helps in regaining confidence and sense of well being.

                                                                                        

YOUR SCORE        RISK ANALYSIS

Destiny                   Score more than 400    = 100%

Habit                       (very high risk)

Psychological         Score 200-400     =(33-99%) Risk

Medical                   (100-200 Reversal Range)

Biochemical            Score lower than 100= 0%

Total                         Definite reversal-No Risk                  

 

BECOMING HEART ATTACK PROOF

Modern Cardiology has given up on curing heart disease. It’s aggressive interventions CABG, angioplasty and stenting do not reduce the frequency of new heart attacks or prolong survival except in small subsets of patients. For most patients these procedures do not treat life threatening blocks. Thus, it is clear that the goal of cardiology has become the relief of pain and unpleasant symptoms in the face of progressive disability and often death from disease.

In the longest ongoing study of its kind, Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD, general surgeon and researcher, Cleveland Clinic has shown that a low fat diet, coupled with cholesterol lowering medication, is the single most effective way to stop progression of coronary artery disease. As detailed in an article in the August 1, 1999 issue of the American Journal of Cardiology, the heart patients in Dr. Esselstyn’s trial fared significantly better and over a longer period of time than patients in similar studies.

Dr. Esselstyn attributes the success of his 12 year trial to substantially lower mean levels of both total cholesterol  (145mg/dl) and LDL (82mg/dl), low density lipoproteins or so-called “bad cholesterol.” To achieve these levels, the 18 patients in Dr. Esselstyn’s study consumed less than 10 percent of their daily calories from fat, a percentage common in countries where heart disease is virtually non existent and took cholesterol-lowering medications.

“In this study, patients become virtually heart-attack proof,” says Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD which is remarkable since these same patients had experienced 48 cardiac events among them in the eight years prior to joining the study. Over more than a decade of Dr. Esselstyn’s ongoing trial, only one patient, who was non compliant, experienced a cardiac event.

Dr. Esselstyn believes his patients benefited from having only one lifestyle goal on which to focus a plant-based diet that eliminated meat, fish, oils and all dairy products except skimmed milk and non fat yoghurt in favor of grains, legumes, vegetables and fruit. “We achieved these excellent results without structured exercise, meditation, stress management, and other added lifestyle changes that were considered essential in other studies,” the Cleveland Clinic researcher explains.

Dr. Esselstyn says modern cardiology has “given up on a cure”, and is instead fixated on stopgap measures such as bypass surgery and variations of angioplasty that “treat the symptoms, not the disease.”

Hope you liked this blog!

 

This article is written by Dr. Bimal Chhajer (India’s best heart doctor)