Heart Disease – What is it, Causes, Symptoms and Treatments!

Cardiopathy – What it is, Causes, Symptoms and Treatments and much more is what you will learn from now on, so stay with us and discover everything about Cardiopathy , a disease  that kills more Brazilians every day.

In addition, heart  disease is a chronic heart disease , which has different causes and can progressively disable the person’s personal and professional life, and may even lead to death. The disease  develops when the heart  becomes so ill that it loses its functional capacity.

By infringing great physical and emotional strain on the patient, the disease  was the target of Bill 6883/10, which proposed to modify the Organic Law of Social Assistance (Law 8742/93) and grant a monthly minimum wage to patients with severe heart disease . with a per capita family income of less than 1/4 of the minimum wage. Despite the importance of the proposal, it was shelved in the National Congress.

What is Heart Disease:  Congenital heart disease  ( see Congenital  Heart Disease ) is a change in the structure of your heart that is  present even before birth. It is a generic term used to describe changes in the heart  and great vessels, present at birth.

These changes occur while the fetus is developing in the womb  and can affect about 1 in 100 children, according to data from the American Heart Association. It is the most common congenital alteration and one of the main causes of death related to congenital malformations.

According to data from the Brazilian Society of Cardiology in Brazil, around 23,000 children are born with heart problems. Of these, around 80% will need some cardiac surgery during their evolution. Congenital  heart  diseases can produce symptoms at birth, during childhood, or are only in adulthood. In some cases, congenital heart disease causes no symptoms .

Types of Heart Disease:  The term heart  disease covers all diseases  that affect the heart . Some of the common types of heart disease  are as follows:

• Congenital heart disease: heart defects present from birth. In the most serious cases, it is usually noticed as soon as the baby is born; in less severe cases it can be diagnosed when the person is already in adulthood.
• Myocardial diseases: defects in the heart muscle . In many cases, the organ cannot pump blood  properly.
• Heart infections: are caused when bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites reach the heart muscle.
• Valve heart disease: The heart  has four valves that open and close to allow blood to flow through the organ. A variety of factors can damage the valves, causing disease .
• Hypertensive heart disease: It is a consequence of high blood pressure  , which can overload the heart  and blood vessels and cause disease .
• Ischemic heart disease: caused by the narrowing of the heart ‘s arteries  by the accumulation of fat , which leads to a decrease in blood supply to the organ. The disease  can cause angina (chest pain) or, in acute cases, a heart attack.

Diagnosis of Heart Disease:  To diagnose the disease , it is necessary to make an assessment of the functional capacity of the individual ‘s heart . In addition to studying his medical history, the doctor needs to perform some tests.

They are: clinical, electrocardiogram at rest, dynamic electrocardiography, exercise stress test, echocardiogram at rest and echocardiogram associated with exercise or pharmacological procedures. In addition, the specialist may also require a chest X-ray, myocardial scintigraphy, and coronary ventriculography. With a complicated name, this last exam performs an evaluation of the coronary evolutionary pattern.

Causes of Heart Disease:  The heart  is divided into four chambers – two on the right side and two on the left side. In carrying out its basic task – pumping blood  throughout the body – the heart  uses its left and right sides for different tasks.

The right side of the heart receives venous blood rich in carbon dioxide from the tissues and will be transported to the lungs through the pulmonary arteries. In the lungs, hematosis will occur, which is the process in which carbon dioxide will be exchanged for oxygen, and then this oxygen-rich blood  will return to the left side of the heart  through the pulmonary veins. The left side of the heart  pumps blood through the aorta to the rest of the body so that the cells can use oxygen as fuel to function.

Most heart changes occur when the baby is still in the womb . During the first month of pregnancy, the  fetal heart begins to beat. At this point, the heart  is just a tube with a shape that vaguely resembles a heart.

Soon structures form on either side of the organ, as well as the blood vessels that carry blood . It is usually at this point in a baby’s development that heart changes can begin to develop. It is not known for sure what causes congenital heart  disease, but some conditions are suspected:

• Genetic or chromosomal changes in the child, such as Down syndrome, which leads to an 8x higher incidence of developing some heart disease
• Use of certain medications, alcohol, or drugs during pregnancy
• Maternal viral infection, such as rubella, in the first trimester of pregnancy
• The risk of having a child with congenital  heart disease can double if a parent or sibling has a congenital heart disorder.

Symptoms of Heart Disease:  There are numerous types of congenital heart  disease and each one manifests itself in a way. Some simpler congenital heart diseases do not necessarily lead to symptoms, but the disease  is  diagnosed by the presence of a murmur identified by the Pediatrician. In more severe cases, the baby is born with a bluish color of the skin  and mucous membranes (called cyanosis).

Other patients may experience tiredness during feedings or exertion, poor weight gain, bronchitis and/or recurrent pneumonia. At other times, the patient may report that the heart  suddenly trips or fires, denoting the presence of arrhythmias, which are changes in the heartbeat.

Treatments for Heart Disease:  While there is a long list of possible causes for heart disease , few are directly treatable or curable. Therefore, most therapy is aimed at treating the effects of the disease  on the heart.

If heart disease  is diagnosed at an advanced stage, a critically ill patient will require immediate life-saving measures such as placement of a breathing tube and administration of medications to improve heart function and blood pressure  . Once the patient is stabilized, long-term therapy needs such as oral medication, pacemakers, surgery or heart transplantation will be identified.

Initial treatments for heart disease  for patients diagnosed in the early stages of heart  disease include drug therapy to alleviate heart failure, to decrease the heart ‘s oxygen needs and workload  (by relaxing the body ‘s arteries ), and to regulate abnormal heartbeats. . Drugs that help the heart contract include digoxin for use at home and dopamine, dobutamine and milrinone for hospital use.

Diuretics help relieve fluid overload in heart failure. Vasodilators, ACE inhibitors and beta blockers dilate the body’s blood vessels and lower blood pressure , thus reducing the heart  ‘s workload .

For patients at risk of developing blood clots, blood thinners or blood thinners such as heparin or coumadin are prescribed along with diuretics such as Lasix and aldactone to relieve venous congestion. These drugs can result in side effects, so the patient has to be carefully monitored to avoid complications.

When drugs are not effective against heart disease  or when arrhythmias require regulation, a pacemaker or a defibrillator can be surgically implanted in the patient.

Procedures for implanting both devices involve placing a small mechanical device under the skin  of the chest or abdomen with lead wires introduced through veins into the heart . A pacemaker is used to monitor and stabilize slow heartbeats, while a defibrillator (“an emergency room in the heart ”) detects and treats fast and potentially lethal heart rhythms.

Since sudden death can occur in patients with heart disease , defibrillators are often recommended for people who show evidence of arrhythmias.

For symptoms of heart failure associated with decreased blood flow from the ventricles, septal myomectomy, which is considered major heart surgery  , is sometimes recommended. This procedure involves surgically removing the part of the thickened septum muscle that blocks blood flow .

In some cases of heart disease, the mitral valve is replaced with an artificial valve. However, the procedure does not prevent sudden death due to hearing arrhythmias nor does it stop the progression of the disease .

Since heart disease  often becomes progressively worse, the heart  can reach a state where it no longer responds to medication or surgery. The “last resort” treatment is a heart transplant , when the patient has symptoms of severe heart failure. A transplant can cure the symptoms of heart failure, but the surgery carries significant risks, such as infection, organ rejection, and the side effects of necessary medications.

There are surgical procedures that can be implemented to sustain life until a transplant donor becomes available. Left Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) provides mechanical circulatory support, while Dynamic Heart Disease  is a procedure whereby a musculoskeletal flap, created from a patient’s chest muscle, is taught first to contract and then to contract. is wrapped around the heart  to help with contraction.