Heart / Cardiac Diseases / Symptons / Syptoms / Diaganosis & Treatments

Heart rate monitors used to be exclusively operated by physicians and nurses alone but that was soon rectified with today’s multi-tasking generation. Every person seemed to want to know about everything that was related to them and that of course included monitoring their own heartbeats.

What is a Heart Monitor
Also known as a cardiac monitor, a heart monitor is a piece of electronic equipment that can be used to track or observe heart functions continuously. It allows people to place a numerical value on their healthiness based on their heart rate and have a target heart rate to work for. The more complex versions of the heart monitor allow physicians to see any signs of deterioration or improvement and make the necessary adjustments immediately.

Types of Heart Monitors
Today, heart monitors are produced by the millions and designed to cater specific types of individuals. Some heart monitors are primarily designed for weight loss programs while others are meant for the use of athletes or fitness programs. Some are wireless or come as a built-in feature of exercise equipment like a treadmill or an exercise bike. It can be strapped to your wrist or of considerable size. It may or may not emit any electromagnetic waves, depending on its purpose. A fetal heart monitor, for instance, must not produce any waves at all as this may affect the health of the baby.

Factors on Selecting the Best Heart Monitor for You

ECG-Accurate Monitors with Chest Straps – Heart monitors that come with chest straps are more often not the most accurate of heart monitors. The chest strap is strapped around your chest, a few centimeters below your breast. It contains a device that’s able to detect electrical activity of your heart and transmit it to the brain of the machine – just like an ECG. The results are shown on the display monitor, which most of the times is attached to your wrist like a watch. Others however prefer results to be transmitted through audio messages via earphones.

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Suppose that at a distance you see a short, stooped figure walking with short, slow steps. Most likely, you will conclude that the person is old. The hunched posture gives you the clue.

Why does aging contort so many bodies in this way? The reason is that many people, throughout their lives, never extend the neck to its full range, and so the muscles shorten. Long hours of reading, sewing, typing, or standing at a workbench take their toll. Eventually deposits of calcium salts in the joints complete the process of immobilization. Once this calcification takes place, nothing can be done to reverse it.

Fortunately, older persons can take action before it is too late. The best action is regular exercise that stretches the muscles and improves flexibility, with special considerations on the core muscles. This kind of response is relatively important for a number of factors that when taken for granted will only lead to serious health problems.

What Are Core Muscles?

Core muscles pertain to the muscles found at the obliques, abdominals, lower back, and the glutes. These four areas of the body are the ones that usually frame the posture of a person. Hence, a good posture reflects the good condition of these muscle areas.

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Your bones hang out in a lot of joints. Knee joints. Hip joints. The joints in your fingers and the joints in your toes.

Wherever bones meet, there is also cartilage, a rubbery, protective layer that ensures your joints bend smoothly and painlessly. But even cartilage cannot do this tremendous job alone. A thin membrane called the “synovium” provides fluid that lubricates the moving parts of the joint. When the cartilage wears out of the synovium becomes inflamed, the result is generally a case of “osteoarthritis” or “rheumatoid arthritis.”

In osteoarthritis, the cartilage can be eroded so much that bone does rub on bone. Thos type of arthritis develops gradually over a lifetime as a simple result of the wear and tear placed on your joints over the years. Very few people escape some degree of osteoarthritis, though the severity varies a great deal.

As a matter of fact, if you are over the age of 50, you are likely to have at least one joint affected by osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis affects men and women equally and is by far the most common type of arthritis, with almost 16 million Americans in the list.

In rheumatoid arthritis, damage to the synovium is at the source of trouble. Doctors and researchers are not absolutely sure what causes it, but most think that rheumatoid arthritis is a disease in which the immune system actually attacks certain tissues in the body, including those that connect the joints and the synovium.

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Being fit and healthy is the in thing. Actually, it really never goes out of style. That body is the most valuable asset you could have in your lifetime. Thus it is important that you take good care of it. Give it the proper attention it needs.

When it comes to ensuring and maintaining the health, the best option is to do cardio training.

What Is Cardio Training?

Cardio training involves any activity that requires the use of the large muscle groups of the body in a regular and uninterrupted manner. It elevates the heart rate between 60 to 85 percent of the fastest heart rate you could get.

Some of the usual cardio training activities are walking, jogging, running, aerobics, cycling, tae bo, swimming and rowing. Cardio training is considered an aerobic exercise as one is required to move from one exercise to another.

What Are the Benefits of Training?

1. Gives Energy to the Body
You can expect more energy and higher endurance after some time of regular cardio training.

2. Prevents Diseases
One could prevent heart diseases with regular cardio training. It is also helpful in preventing other variety of diseases like diabetes, obesity and even high cholesterol. The cardiovascular training strengthens the heart and the lungs. The low to moderated type of cardio exercises are required for people seeking to prevent diseases. Examples of these are walking, brisk walking or jogging.

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In a long-term study of the health of the people of in the United States, the U.S. Public Health Service documented the chances of developing heart disease among various groups in the population. Long before the any symptoms appeared, epidemiological research could identify high-risk groups.

Among the highest risk factors are male sex, age over 35, cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, high levels of certain blood fats, and a family history of cardiovascular disorders.

Other researchers have added to this list another risk factor: the compulsive, hard-driving, highly anxious personality. The greater the number of severity, the greater the person’s overall risk.

These threats to the heart can be divided into two main categories: those beyond individual control, such as age, sex, and heredity, and those that can be controlled, avoided, or even eliminated. Among those in the second category are what cardiologists call “the triple threat.” These are the high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, and high cholesterol levels in the blood.

If you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, your risk of having a heart attack is twice that of a nonsmoker. If you smoke, have hypertension, and eat a diet high in fats without any exercise at all, your risk is five times greater than normal.

The Healthy Heart

If these risk factors endanger the heart’s health, what enhances its well-being and improves its odds of working long and well?

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Your heart pumps nearly 5 quarts of blood through your body every minute. Even while you are sitting still, your heart beats (expands and contracts) 60 to 80 times each minute. These heartbeats are triggered by electrical impulses that begin in your heart’s natural pacemaker, called the sinoatrial node (SA node). The SA node is a group of cells located at the top of your heart’s upper right chamber (the right atrium).

Any irregularity in your heart’s natural rhythm is called an arrhythmia. Almost everyone’s heart skips or flutters at one time or another, and these mild, one-time palpitations are harmless. But there are about 4 million Americans who have recurrent arrhythmias, and these people should be under the care of a doctor.

Categories of Arrhythmia

Arrhythmias can be divided into two categories: ventricular and supraventricular. Ventricular arrhythmias happen in the heart’s two lower chambers, called the ventricles. Supraventricular arrhythmias happen in the structures above the ventricles, mainly the atria, which are the heart’s two upper chambers.

Arrhythmias are further defined by the speed of the heartbeats. A very slow heart rate, called bradycardia, means the heart rate is less than 60 beats per minute. Tachycardia is a very fast heart rate, meaning the heart beats faster than 100 beats per minute. Fibrillation, the most serious form of arrhythmia, is fast, uncoordinated beats, which are contractions of individual heart-muscle fibers.

What is heart block?

Heart block happens when the SA node’s electrical signal cannot travel to the heart’s lower chambers (the ventricles).

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Angina pectoris is a Latin phrase that means “strangling in the chest.” Patients often say that angina is like a squeezing, suffocating, or burning feeling in their chest, but an episode of angina is not a heart attack. Unlike a heart attack, the heart muscle is not damaged forever, and the pain usually goes away with rest.

What causes angina?

Angina is the pain you feel when a diseased vessel in your heart (called a coronary artery) can no longer deliver enough blood to a part of the heart muscle to meet its need for oxygen. The heart’s lack of oxygen-rich blood is called ischemia. Angina usually happens when your heart has an extra need for oxygen-rich blood, such as during exercise. Other triggers of angina can be emotional stress, extreme cold or hot temperatures, heavy meals, alcohol, and smoking.

Angina attacks in men usually happen after the age of 30 and are nearly always caused by coronary artery disease (CAD). For women, angina tends to happen later in life and can be caused by many different factors. Causes other than CAD include narrowing of the aortic valve in the heart (aortic stenosis), a low number of red blood cells in the bloodstream (anemia), or an overactive thyroid gland (hyperthyroidism).

What are the symptoms?

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Like standard echocardiography, transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) uses sound waves to produce an image of the heart and to see how it is functioning. But unlike standard echocardiography, the sound waves travel through a tube-like device put in the mouth and passed down the throat into the esophagus. (The esophagus is the tube that connects the throat to the stomach).

This test can show doctors the detailed size, shape, and movement of your heart muscle, and the condition of your aorta, which is the main blood vessel supplying blood to your body. It can also show how the heart valves are working and how blood is flowing through your heart. TEE also gives doctors information about your arteries. Doctors use this test when they cannot get a clear picture of your heart using standard echocardiography.

How does it work?

TEE uses high-frequency sound waves (also called ultrasound) that can provide a moving picture of your heart. The test is like standard echocardiography except that the pictures of the heart come from inside the esophagus rather than through the chest wall. The sound waves are sent through the body with a device called a transducer, which is attached to a tube and put down your esophagus. The sound waves bounce off of the heart and return to the transducer as echoes. The echoes are converted into images on a television monitor to produce a picture of your heart and aorta.

What should I expect?

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Echocardiography uses sound waves to produce an image of the heart and to see how it is functioning. Stress echocardiography (or stress echo) lets doctors see the wall motion of the heart’s pumping chambers before and after exercise. The test can show if certain areas of the heart muscle are not getting enough oxygen-rich blood.

If your doctor wants you to have a stress echocardiogram, you will have the same test as exercise stress testing, except that when your heart rate reaches a certain number you will be asked to step off of the treadmill or stationary bike and lie down.

For patients who are too sick to exercise, doctors can give them a drug that has the same effect on the body that exercise does. Some examples of the drugs that may be given are dobutamine or adenosine. You may hear this type of test called a dobutamine stress echo.

How does it work?

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Positron emission tomography (PET) is a scan that uses information about the energy of certain elements in your body to show whether parts of the heart muscle are alive and working. A PET scan can also show if your heart is getting enough blood to keep the muscle healthy. A PET scan is very accurate because it actually shows your heart at work.

How does it work?

PET scanning uses a radioactive substance, which is injected into your bloodstream. This radioactive substance goes to areas inside your body, where tissue either is damaged or not working properly. These areas usually have what doctors call increased or decreased “metabolic” activity. The PET scan machine then has hundreds of radiation detectors that can find this radioactive substance in your body. The PET scanner measures this radioactivity throughout your body and uses computers to create pictures of your heart or other body tissues.

What should I expect?

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