Upbeat View

Heart disease is still a big killer, but doctors are pumped up about the advances made in preventing and treating it

(page 2 of 2)

Rehabilitation

Gone are the days when recovery from a heart attack meant taking it easy. Contemporary cardiac rehab is most often undergone in a gym, working up a sweat on exercise equipment. The heart is a muscle, after all, and muscles need to be worked.

Surprisingly, there’s never been a large study of the effect of exercise in cardiac rehab patients (although one is under way now), Weaver says. But both he and LaLonde are convinced of its benefits. Patients who exercise after a heart attack control their weight better, are less likely to smoke, and have fewer cases of sudden death. LaLonde also likes rehab’s psychological effects. “It’s a mental thing,” he says. “Patients feel they can get back to normal activity faster,” and it’s the ideal environment for education and counseling.

But even with all these advances, Weaver says coronary care has many more frontiers ahead of it. The nation’s obesity rates remain a problem, especially as they contribute to Type II diabetes, a major contributing factor for heart disease. The number of children suffering from the disease worries public-health observers. Diabetes and untreated hypertension lead to congestive heart failure, an overall weakening of the muscle, which is much more difficult to treat. Researchers now are working with stem cells and implantable pacemakers as promising treatments for the condition.

LaLonde also mentions “vulnerable plaque,” ruptures within plaque deposits that can lead to catastrophic cardiac events, believed to be the type that killed Russert. He hopes that, within the next five years, doctors will be better able to identify these deposits early and treat them.

For now, the best treatment remains prevention, something no one has to tell Darryl Price, a 52-year-old retired Detroiter who suffered his second heart attack in July. He’d already had one angioplasty, and became complacent about taking his medication: Plavix and hypertension drugs. After mowing the lawn one day, he started sweating profusely and suffered massive chest pain. A neighbor called EMS, and all the miracles of modern cardiology were summoned to save him, including the cellular-transmitted ECG. His door-to-balloon time was a new hospital record: 22 minutes. But Price learned all that technology won’t help him if he doesn’t do his part.

“I wasn’t completely unconscious,” he says of the angioplasty. “Lying on that table and seeing your heart stop is something else.”

There’s nothing like fear as a motivator. He won’t be skipping his medication anymore, he says. “That’s first and foremost.”

Derringer is a Grosse Pointe Woods-based freelancer. E-mail: editorial@hourdetroit.com.
 

Like what you've read? Subscribe to Hour Detroit »