Scottish Institute of Reflexology

HEART ATTACK

“Take it easy now. You’ve just had a heart attack” Words that everyone dreads hearing. But maybe you’re a lucky one as you have actually heard these words and know that you’re still alive, maybe in an ambulance, maybe in hospital or maybe even back at home feeling safe and sound. This is not always the case for many men, women and also children who have been unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and didn’t get that all important and very urgent medical care needed when they had their heart attack. It’s a fact that if medical help can be provided immediately then most heart attacks can be treated successfully - the sooner the treatment, the lesser the damage to the heart.

Heart attacks or ‘myocardial infarctions’ (MI) or simply ‘coronaries’  as they are sometimes called, are the most common cause of death in the UK and half of the people who suffer a heart attack will not survive. Although heart attacks are more likely to affect the elderly they are not uncommon in people of fifty years of age and under nowadays due to lifestyle. They affect more men than women in this age group. However, after the menopause, women’s risk rises to become the same as that of men.

Maggie Clark MSIR MICHT

http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk
www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk
www.nhlbi.nih.gov
www.medicinenet.com

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