Heart Attack at a Glance

Heart Attack at a Glance

• A heart attack results when a blood clot completely obstructs a coronary artery supplying blood to the heart muscle and heart muscle dies.
• The blood clot that causes the heart attack usually forms at the site of rupture of an atherosclerotic, cholesterol plaque on the inner wall of a coronary artery.
• The most common symptom of heart attack is chest pain.
• The most common complications of a heart attack are heart failure, and ventricular fibrillation.
• The risk factors for atherosclerosis and heart attack include elevated cholesterol levels, increased blood pressure, tobacco use, diabetes, male gender and a family history of heart attacks at an early age.
• Heart attacks are diagnosed with electrocardiograms and measurement of cardiac enzymes in blood
• Early reopening of blocked coronary arteries reduces the amount of damage to the heart and improves the prognosis for a heart attack.
• Medical treatment for heart attacks may include anti-platelet, anti-coagulant, and clot dissolving drugs as well as angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, beta blockers and oxygen.
• Interventional treatment for heart attacks may include coronary angiography with percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), coronary artery stents, and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG).
• Patients suffering a heart attack are hospitalized for several days to detect heart rhythm disturbances, shortness of breath, and chest pain.
• Further heart attacks can be prevented by aspirin, beta blockers, ACE inhibitors, discontinuing smoking, weight reduction, exercise, good control of blood pressure and diabetes, following a low cholesterol and low saturated fat diet that is high in omega-3-fatty acids, taking multivitamins with an increased amount of folic acid, decreasing LDL cholesterol, and increasing HDL cholesterol.

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