Treatment & Care

Things that you and your health care professional can do for heart disease can be all over the map, from CPR, to high-tech surgeries, to caregiving. Chances are that you, or someone you love, may need different types.

Interventions
1. CPR Cardiopulmonary resuscitation -- CPR -- is one link in what the American Heart Association calls the chain of survival. Learn CPR for a loved one. You can use the Internet to find classes near you
2. Stents Get information about why they’re used and what types are available.
3. Angioplasty and Stents Angioplasty is a procedure that uses very little cutting to open blocked heart arteries. Stents can be put in during angioplasty.
4. Heart Bypass Surgery This can treat heart disease when your coronary arteries are blocked. Your doctor may treat the problem by giving the blood a new pathway to the heart.
5. Valve Disease Treatment When your heart valve disease needs attention, it can be treated by traditional surgery or by balloon valvuloplasty, which doesn't require as much cutting.
6. Cardioversion For many people with heart disease, drugs alone won’t turn an arrhythmia into a normal heart rhythm. These people may need a procedure called cardioversion or electrical cardioversion.
7. EECP This can help stimulate blood vessels to develop small branches, creating a natural bypass around narrowed or blocked arteries that cause chest pain.
8. Pacemakers It’s a small device that sends electrical impulses to the heart muscle to keep up a suitable heart rate and rhythm. A pacemaker may also treat fainting spells (syncope), congestive heart failure, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
9. Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators (ICD) An ICD, or implantable cardioverter defibrillator, can treat abnormal heart rhythms.
10. Lead Extraction That’s removal of one or more leads from inside the heart. Leads that are placed outside the heart during open heart surgery cannot be removed by this procedure.
11. Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) It’s a kind of mechanical heart. A surgeon would place it inside your chest. It would help the heart pump oxygen-rich blood throughout the body.
12. Heart Transplant A person's diseased heart is replaced with a healthy donor's heart. The donor is a person who has died and whose family has agreed to donate their loved one's organs.
Medications
1. ACE Inhibitors Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors are heart meds that widen, or dilate, your blood vessels to raise the amount of blood your heart pumps and lower your blood pressure.
2. Angiotension II Receptor Blockers These heart drugs decrease certain chemicals that narrow blood vessels. That allows blood to flow more easily through your body. These drugs also decrease chemicals that cause salt and fluid to build up in the body.
3. Antiarrhythmics These drugs treat abnormal heart rhythms caused by irregular electrical activity of your heart.
4. Antiplatelet Drugs They are a group of powerful medications that prevent the formation of blood clots.
5. Aspirin Therapy For more than 100 years, aspirin has been used as a pain reliever. Since the 1970s, aspirin has also been used to prevent and manage heart disease and stroke.
6. Beta-Blocker Therapy Beta-blockers are one of the most widely prescribed class of drugs to treat hypertension (high blood pressure). They are a mainstay treatment for congestive heart failure.
7. Calcium Channel Blocker Drugs These relax blood vessels and increase the supply of blood and oxygen to the heart. They also reduce the heart's workload.
8. Clot Buster Drugs Also called thrombolytic therapy, these are a type of heart medication given in the hospital through the veins (intravenous) to break up blood clots.
9. Digoxin If you have heart disease, this is a medicine that helps an injured or weakened heart work more efficiently.
10. Diuretics You may hear these called water pills. They help your body get rid of unneeded water and salt through urine. That makes it easier for your heart to pump. It also helps control your blood pressure.
11. Nitrates These are meds that treat angina in people with coronary artery disease. They also help ease chest pain caused by blocked blood vessels of the heart.
12. Warfarin and Other Blood Thinners These medicines help prevent clots from forming. Blood thinners treat some types of heart disease.
Care
1. Plant-Based Diet for Heart Health Early studies suggest it may have a number of benefits.
2. Recovery After Heart Surgery There are things you should know when you or someone you love comes back from heart surgery.
3. Finding Strength During Tough Times Caregivers should be mindful of the psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual aspects of health and illness, as well as the effects of these factors on themselves and their loved ones.

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