HEART DISEASE

Common Heart Diseases | Diagnostics and Therapy | PDF Heart Diseases

There are many diseases that can affect the heart with its structures and functions. Over the course of days to decades, this can lead to complaints (e.g. shortness of breath, pressure/pain in the chest, dizziness, palpitations, etc.). However, the diseases can also remain undetected for a long time and only be diagnosed when the function of the heart is already irreversibly impaired. Here, early detection helps to minimise dangers to your health.

Frequent heart diseases

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a progressive narrowing of the coronary vessels caused by deposits of blood fats, blood cells, connective tissue and, to a lesser extent, calcium (arteriosclerosis). As a result, the blood supply to these vessels is disturbed, first during exertion and later even at rest, and affected patients complain of a feeling of tightness in the chest, sometimes radiating into the left arm and jaw area, and of shortness of breath (angina pectoris).

In acute CHD, a coronary vessel closes within minutes to hours, the resulting circulatory disturbance of the heart muscle area behind it leads to a heart attack with severe chest pain (sometimes also in the back or abdomen), sometimes also with radiation into the left arm and jaw area, and possibly together with shortness of breath, sweating and nausea. Risk factors are: Overweight, lack of exercise, smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, high cholesterol, male gender and older age.

If the rhythmic sequence of the heartbeat is disturbed, this is called cardiac arrhythmia. Sometimes there are palpable heart stumbles, extra beats (extrasystoles), interruptions and palpitations. Depending on the severity, various symptoms may occur, such as a drop in blood pressure with or without dizziness, visual disturbances, feeling of weakness, shortness of breath, sweating, feeling of anxiety and possibly brief fainting (syncope).

The four heart valves act like valves in the heart: they regulate the direction of blood flow. Heart valve defects can affect one or more heart valves and have various causes: Heredity, age, inflammatory or infectious heart diseases, rheumatic heart valve diseases or chest injuries. Most heart valve defects are acquired in the course of life; more rarely they are congenital. Initially, they can be symptom-free, but later, poor performance and shortness of breath are typical symptoms.

In heart failure (cardiac insufficiency), there is a pathological imbalance between the amount of blood needed by the body and the filling (diastolic) or pumping (systolic) function of the heart. Heart failure can occur acutely or in the context of chronic damage. It is caused by the diseases listed above, but also by other genetic, inflammatory, infectious, pulmonary and other factors. Initially, heart failure can be symptom-free, but later it can lead to poor performance, shortness of breath and water retention in the lungs and legs.

Our offer Diagnostics and therapy of heart diseases

• Medical history on the person, lifestyle and family
• Physical examination with inspection, palpation and auscultation (listening)
• Blood pressure monitoring at rest, during stress, long-term blood pressure measurement over 24 hours
• ECG, stress ECG (ergometry)
• Measurement of the ankle-brachial index and pulse wave velocity as indicators of arterial occlusive disease and individual vascular risk
  Ultrasound examinations of vessels and heart (duplex sonography and echocardiography)
• Laboratory tests
• Referral for further diagnostics and therapy to specially qualified specialist colleagues (stress echocardiography, cardio-CT, cardio-MRI and cardiac catheter examination)
• Drug therapy
• Counselling to improve lifestyle habits (sport, nutrition, stress)
• DMP/Curaplan CHD