On some occasions the body gives signals that anticipate the episode of sudden cardiac death.
Dr. Luis Molinary Fernández, cardiologist at Bayamón Medical Center. Photomontage: Medicine and Public Health Magazine.
In an exclusive interview for the Medicina y Salud Pública Magazine, Dr. Luis Molinary Fernández, a cardiologist at the Bayamón Medical Center, stated that although the cases of sudden death They are not as frequent as believed, but they can increase over the years, due to the increase in the prevalence of conditions that trigger them.
“Although the sudden death It is not as common as people think, if risk factors are increasing such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity, at any time we can see a person collapsing”, he indicated.
Despite the fact that there are several causes that can cause a person to suddenly collapse without prior warning and among them there are undetected congenital heart diseases, the most frequent are related to risk factors cardiovascularsuch as having diabetes, high blood pressure, being overweight, smoking, not exercising, and having atherosclerosis.
“Of the causes that would cause a sudden deaththey are all related to the system cardiovascular. heart rate heart and vascular system of the arterial or venous system that carries oxygenated blood to the heart. The arterial system is part of the system cardiovascular”, clarified the doctor.
It is worth mentioning that the statistics for sudden death worldwide they are around 1%, however, only 5% of patients who present it survive.
If you have cardiac symptoms, you should go to an emergency room.
Previously, patients who have an episode of sudden death they may have experienced chest pain that spreads to the arm, dizziness, syncope, palpitations and symptoms of stomach upset, so in these cases the cardiologist emphasizes going immediately to an emergency room.
In this regard, he warned that “those who arrive very late following a stroke, following part of their face or arm fell asleep and arrive following 4 hours, it is very difficult to save their brain from ischemia. A patient who arrives 1 hour following chest pain, a heart attack, it is very difficult to save the heart muscle, so time is very important; that the patient as soon as he has the symptoms he goes to a hospital ”.
In the case of episodes of sudden death in athletes, Dr. Molinary said that most of them can be the result of an undetected heart problem or a strong blow to the chest that causes a potentially fatal arrhythmia and in these cases it is essential to immediately perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR and have a defibrillator.
“Any unusual symptom that a young athlete may have should be evaluated directly with a cardiologist. There are patients who have a heart attack without having any risk factor and possibly there are problems with the hematological system, defects in blood coagulation, in the venous and arterial system, ”she confirmed.
There are also other causes that trigger these episodes. They are massive intracerebral bleeding; pulmonary embolism; hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and Brugada syndrome, an inherited disease that presents with an abnormality in the electrical activity of the heart.
Role of the primary physician and the patient in the detection of silent cardiac problems
“The primary doctor must know how to identify the symptoms of a heart problem because it is where the patient goes first. When there is cardiac collapse, chest pain, or there are neurological changes, specialists would come in first line,” he noted.
The cardiologist placed special emphasis on the importance of paying attention to the signals that the body gives. “If you have severe pain, if you have a syncope, have chest pain that is increasing in frequency, sweat cold, or the pain passes to the left side, you should go to an emergency room, not wait for an outpatient appointment. ”.
“I always tell my patients that they don’t feel well and they know that what they are feeling is physically strong, go to an emergency room. If you know your body and you know that something is not right, it is not normal, do not wait for it to get worse and go to your doctor, ”he said.
Likewise, knowing the family history of episodes of sudden death heart or heart problems heart It is essential to act early and prevent deaths.
“If you know that your mom, your dad, your uncles, had a sudden deaththey collapsed and died and if they are giving you dizziness or you ever lost consciousness, you probably have something hereditary that causes the same thing that happened to your relatives, “concluded the expert.
See the full program here.