August
Prevention is Better Than Cure
At Brookhaven Heart, we believe prevention is better than cure and hope that all of our patients will receive the best possible care available. That is why we make preventative heart services one of our top priorities. Although no one likes to learn that his or her heart may not be quite as healthy as he or she believed, the first step toward ensuring that your heart is as strong as possible is to seek and obtain the necessary preventative care services from your doctor.
Silent Killers
Conditions such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes are often called “silent killers.” They are called this because they often cause no symptoms; they go unrecognized and unnoticed for several years and later cause harm in the form of heart attack, stroke, aneurysms, blindness, kidney failure and/or sudden death. Annual preventative checkups help in timely detection and treatment of these conditions and prevent or delay such catastrophic events.
Cardiovascular Physical
With a thorough cardiovascular physical and pertinent test results such as an echocardiogram, or ECG, and blood tests, your cardiologist will be able to identify if you are likely to experience cardiac problems in the next 10 years. In such an event, your cardiologist may recommend any or a varying combination of the following cardiovascular tests which help our doctors to analyze the structure, function and blood flow to the heart muscle and assess the arteries and detect any abnormality and its severity.
Cardiovascular imaging tests performed at our facility include:
- Echocardiogram (ultrasound of heart)
- Regular stress test (analyze ECG during exercise)
- Nuclear stress test (injects a dye and uses it as a scanner to assess the blood flow to heart at rest and exercise)
- AAA scan (ultrasound of abdominal aorta)
- Carotid duplex scan (ultrasound of carotid arteries in neck)
If your father, mother, siblings or first degree relatives have a history of heart disease, stroke, aneurysms or are being treated for diabetes, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol, or if you engage in cardiovascular risks like smoking, we encourage you to make an appointment with our cardiac specialists as soon as possible. Contact Brookhaven Heart online or call (631) 654 3278 to learn more about our preventative heart services.
“Superior doctor prevents sickness; mediocre doctor attends to impending sickness; inferior doctor treats actual sickness.” (Ancient Chinese proverb)
