Jakarta, IO – “Heart disease” is a blanket term covering a number of incommunicable illnesses that specifically attack the heart. They represent a grave threat, the number one cause of death in the world: according to a World Health Organization study, more than 17 million people across the globe die from some variety of heart condition every year.
In Indonesia, cardiovascular illness-related deaths number 651,481 a year. To be specific, that breaks down to 331,349 deaths from stroke, 245,343 fatal coronary heart attacks, 50,620 hypertension-related fatalities, along with other heart-related illnesses (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, 2019). The result of a 2021 BPJS Kesehatan study shows that heart disease is the biggest health security expenditure, at Rp 7.7 trillion a year.
While there are many types of heart diseases, coronary heart disease can usually be attributed to maintaining an unhealthy lifestyle. A heart attack, properly a “myocardial infarction”, occurs when blood flow to the heart is extremely, if not completely, obstructed. Such an obstruction in the heart’s blood vessels is likely to occur because fat, cholesterol, and/or other substances accumulate in the coronary, or heart, blood vessels. Such an obstruction may be caused by either modifiable or unmodifiable risk factors. The latter factors are age, sex, or a family history of heart attacks, where the heart suddenly stops for whatever reason. The former are hypertension, high cholesterol levels, diabetes mellitus, obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, a smoking habit, and/or psychological stress.
Characteristic symptoms of an oncoming heart attack are a sense of discomfort in the chest area or chest pains (angina), a feeling which lasts for more than 20 minutes, whether at rest or moving around, accompanied by a cold sweat, a sense of weakness, nausea, and/or headaches.
“Recognize the signs of an incoming heart attack as early as possible. If appropriate medical treatment is not available quickly, the death of heart muscle tissues will ensue – and they do not regenerate. In short, it might kill you,” warns dr. Aris Munandar Z.I., Sp.JP-FIHA, a cardiologist from the dr. Zainoel Abidin Banda Aceh General Regional Hospital/ Syiah Kuala University Faculty of Medicine Heart and Blood Vessel Department, Aceh, and a member of the Indonesian Heart Association (Perki) in the “Recognize Signs of a Healthy Heart, Love Your Life” webinar held on Tuesday (17/10/2023).
Pain in an Unspecified Location
Patients are frequently unable to explain or pinpoint exactly where the pain they suffer originates. However, in general, chest pains during a heart attack expresses itself as a characteristic discomfort in the center or left part of the chest, whether as a pressured, squeezed, weighted, or hot sensation, one that spreads out to the shoulders and arms, the neck, the jaws, the teeth, the back and the abdomen, whether the pain is constant or intermittent.
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“You should stop all activity when you feel any sort of chest pain, and immediately contact a doctor,” dr. Aris warns.
Finally, since an unhealthy lifestyle is a major cause of heart disease, dr. Aris emphasizes the importance of quitting smoking, performing routine exercises and maintaining a healthy diet, a proper rest-work balance and stress management. “Keeping the heart healthy in the first place is much better than treating it when it starts to show signs of disease. Other than adopting and maintaining a healthier lifestyle, it is equally important to routinely perform blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol tests, in order to be able to detect and treat disorders in the blood vessels early on,” he said. (est)