Cardiac Rehabilitation provides a medically supervised exercise /educational program specifically for you to improve your quality of life and reduce your coronary risk factors.
- Cardiac rehab meets every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for 1-hour session.
- The entire program usually lasts six weeks (18 visits) up to 12 weeks (36 visits).
- Ask your physician for an order or referral and call 886-7544 for an appointment.
Who is a Candidate for Cardiac Rehab?
Patients are eligible to attend if they are recovering from any of the following conditions:
- Myocardial Infarction (heart attack)
- Coronary artery bypass (open heart) surgery
- Cardiac stent or PTCA
- Valve repair
- Stable angina
Safety Issues
The program is medically supervised with a cardiac trained nurse and ECG monitoring. Cardiac Rehab can help you progress through any fear or anxiety you may experience as you return to an active lifestyle. Everyone progresses at a different rate and it is important to increase you activity gradually.
Educational Needs:
- Medication
- Dietician education session
- Smoking Cessation
- Exercise
- Stress triggers
- Coronary Artery Disease risk factors
STRESS TESTING:
What is a Stress Test?
A stress test is used by doctors to diagnose heart disease. Coronary artery disease occurs when the arteries that carry blood to the heart become clogged with fatty deposits (plaque). A stress test provides information about how well blood is flowing to your heart and how well your heart is working.
What are the risk factors for coronary artery disease?
- Age and gender
- Family history of heart disease
- Diabetes
- High levels of LDL (Abad@) cholesterol
- Low levels of HDL (Agood@) cholesterol
- High blood pressure
- Smoking
- Lack of Exercise
- Being overweight
- Poor diet
- Drinking too much alcohol
- Stress
The more of these risk factors you have, the greater are your chances of developing heart disease. Heart disease is the leading cause of death and disability in the United States.
ECHOCARDIOGRAM
An echocardiogram (also called Aecho@) is a test that uses ultrasound waves to examine the heart. It is a safe and painless procedure that helps doctors diagnose a variety of heart problems such as:
- Size of the heart -measures the size of the heart chambers and thickness of the heart muscle
- Pumping Strength - Is the heart pumping full strength or is it weakened.
- Valve problems -Is the valve leaking or narrow and how severe the problem is.
- Other Uses- The Echo may also be used to detect the presence of fluid around the Heart (congestive heart failure), blood clots or mass inside the heart, abnormal holes between heart chambers. Sometimes, the echo is combined with an exercise stress test, to see how well the heart pumps when made to work harder.
HOLTER MONITORING for 24 hours of continuous ECG recording for ambulatory patients.
Indications for Use:
- Palpitations Afluttering@ of heart
- Evaluation of pacemakers
- Fast or slow heart-rate
- Passing out
- Heart out of rhythm
Help the physician to evaluate your symptoms that may be related to the heart.
EVENT RECORDERS (30-day recorder)
The event recorder is used when the patient experiences the symptom of interest, he/she presses a button that freezes the recording, is stored and transmitted by telephone.Event monitors are excellent at correlating a patients heart rhythm with a patient's symptoms.
Electroencephalogram (EEG)
An EEG is a test that measures and records the electrical activity of your brain. Certain conditions, such as seizures, can be seen by the changes in the normal pattern of the brain's electrical activity.
Why is it done:
- Diagnose epilepsy and see what type of seizures are occurring.
- Loss of consciousness
- Serve as adjunct test if a person in a coma is brain-dead.
- To help the neurologist diagnose and treat disorders affecting the nervous system.
Nerve Conduction Velocity (NCV) Testing
A NCV assesses how well a specific nerve conducts impulses by evaluating the speed of an impulse as it travels along a nerve. This test can help determine if there is nerve damage, the extent of the damage and if nerves have been destroyed.
Example:
- Carpal tunnel
- Numbness or tingling of hands, feet, legs
- Weak grip