The elderly population is in need of extra care for preventing mortality due to Heart Attacks

 

Dr. Balbir Singh, Chairman- Cardiac Sciences, Max Hospital, Saket, New Delhi

As we keep going into the down year and try to look back at the progress of care of cardiac patients, we realize the rising number of heart disease patients in the country. We also understand the high risk and high death rates in elderly people.

This means we as cardiologists have to be extra careful, revising, and learning more technological skills. The good news for the patients is that we are improving technologies and new, safer procedures at Max Super Specialty Hospital at Saket. This is our endeavor to add more skills and save more lives.

The new technique which has been added at Max Saket and provides additional benefits are the Mitral Valve Clip, Cryoablation and the use of remote monitoring cardiac rhythm.

Being the pioneer investigator for all these new therapies, several patients who were not treatable are now finding benefits. The first Cryoablation in a patient with atrial fibrillation was performed in Nov of last year and the patient is asymptomatic on a one-year follow-up.

One of the toughest encounters that cardiologists face among the geriatric population is associated co-morbidities like renal, pulmonary, Cerebrovascular, and frailty that makes them highly vulnerable for cardiac surgery. But the latest innovations which are guided by these concerns emphasize minimally invasive interventions making the procedure much safer. Apart from the hardware, in the percutaneous intervention (PCI) the emphasis is laid on partially or completely absorbable stent platforms. They are hypothesized to decrease the late stent associated events and likely decrease dual antiplatelet therapy duration.

It has been often noticed, that in many cases though people are aware of the problems associated with their lifestyle choices, however, they continue doing that. Apart from aging, the major contributors to the problem are irregular sleep cycles, bad eating habits, stress, hypertension, pollution, high cholesterol, tobacco, alcohol, and many more. Therefore, Max Hospital Saket as an initiative to spread knowledge and awareness on how people make themselves prone to heart ailments used this platform. The experts also shared the ways to notice any early symptoms of heart attack and reach out to the nearest hospital for medical assistance.