Are women treated differently when having a heart attack?
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PrintYou may have seen one of the recent Bellin Health commercials about women and heart disease. It describes how women, may sometimes be ignored when having a heart attack. Click on the video here to see the commercial I am talking about.
A heart attack occurs when the blood flow to a part of the heart is blocked. If the blood flow is blocked completely, the heart muscle near that blood vessel will not get enough blood and oxygen. Without blood and oxygen, that area of the heart will die. Some signs that people experience while having a heart attack may include:
• Uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain in the center of your chest. It may last more than a few minutes or come and go
• Pain or discomfort in one or both arm, the back, neck, jaw or stomach
• Shortness of breath with or without chest discomfort
• Having cold sweats, nausea, or lightheadedness
If you have any of these signs, don’t wait more than 5 minutes before calling for help. Call 911, get to the Emergency Department, and be sure that you have an EKG performed.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) used to be thought of as a “man’s disease.” As a result, the majority of clinical trials that have been done did not include women. This has resulted in a lack of awareness of CVD in women and a lack of knowledge of the “atypical” symptoms of heart attack. Those atypical symptoms of nausea and fatigue for example, may be attributed to emotions, anxiety or just being overweight.
The American Heart Association’s Go Red Campaign has focused on heightening the awareness of CVD in women and the atypical symptoms often found in women. The American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association have empowered healthcare provider teams to consistently treat heart and stroke patients according to the most up-to-date guidelines with their Get With The Guidelines program. These initiatives have made a great impact in the medical community as well as with the public. We see positive results by increased awareness and better medical treatment for women.
Despite these improvements, women are still less likely than men to receive several standard diagnostic tests and treatment procedures. Some of these treatments include cardiac catheterization, clot-busting medications, aspirin, beta-blockers, and bypass surgery. Physicians are still less likely to refer a woman with chest pain than a man for cardiac catheterization, a common test to confirm CVD and treat CVD with angioplasty or stenting. Women are less likely to get an EKG when they come to emergency care for chest pain, even though the guidelines state that everyone seeking care for chest pain should have this done. One other scary fact to note, women are more likely to die within a year of having a heart attack than a man.
For more information on this topic, see this recent article on sex differences in medical care and early death after acute myocardial infarction: http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/118/25/2803
or go to any of these references:
www.goredforwomen.org/index.aspx www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=1165 www.heartforwomen.org www.womenheart.org www.Hearthealthywomen.org www.nhlbi.nih.gov//educational/hearttruth
