People know how important their heart is. This may be the reason why a lot seem to worry whenever they hear the words, heart problems. And one of these heart problems that people tend to be worried about is congestival heart disease. This disease usually affects older people and 61 million people in the United States are suffering from this heart condition. Heart disease is not contagious instead it occurs when something happens in the cardiovascular system. And some of those things include arteriosclerosis or the hardening of the arteries making them inflexible.
Another reason can be because of atherosclerosis or the building up of fat, cholesterol, calcium and other substances that make the arteries narrower making it hard for blood and oxygen to be transported to the heart muscles. Angina or chest pain that directly means that the heart is not getting enough blood, heart attack or blood clotting signaling that blood flow is being blocked and stroke or when a part of the brain is not receiving enough blood to properly function are some of the reasons why heart disease can occur.
How does someone get congestival heart disease? The risk factors of this heart condition include age, past heart attacks and the family history. It is noted that as people get older, the risk of getting a heart problem increases. People who die of heart conditions are those usually at the age of sixty-five and older. Men are mostly at risk of heart disease when they reach the age of forty while women become at risk when they go through their menopausal stages. When someone has already experienced a heart attack in the past, there is a higher probability that he might have one in the future. In some families, heart diseases seem to be a problem that they have got from their ancestors.
People with relatives who have been sick with heart problem have higher risks of having a heart disease. Some other risk factors include smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity and lack of physical activity. Most people do not know that they have heart disease until they experience some chest pains, a heart attack and stroke. And because of this, people need to be brought to the hospital specifically in the emergency room. This happens because some heart conditions are silent diseases, silent killers. People don’t know they already have them until they attack.
It is vital for people to get tested for heart disease before it’s too late. There are a lot of tests that doctors can offer to know if a person may be a possible victim of this heart condition. Some of these procedures are electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, and stress test. Electrocardiogram records the heart’s electrical activity and determines whether the heart beats are normal or not. On the other hand, echocardiogram uses sound waves to monitor heart activities and to see if there are any occurring heart problems. A stress test is done while the patient is doing an exercise and the doctor checks how the heart muscles react. These are just some few tests to see if someone is having heart problems. It is better to get checked early than suffer for life.
