Technologies in Heart Disease:Overview

From Heart Health Initiative

Technologies To Help Fight Heart Disease Across The World

In recent times, the incidences of deaths due to cardiovascular diseases have been controlled to a great extent in the developed countries. It was achieved by a concerted effort to educate the population about the causes of such diseases and their effects. During the last quarter of the 20th century, mortality rates due to cardiovascular diseases in the US, Canada, West Europe, Australia, and Japan were reduced by about 25% to 50%. The best results were obtained in the US and Japan due to the development of technology.

The next best option to sticking to the old adage of preventing heart disease is early detection of heart diseases. Today, technology is so advanced that there are a battery of tests that can be done to detect any sign of heart disease at the earliest possible time. They are generally called screening tests. It is advisable for any person above 40 years of age and/or with a strong family history of cardiovascular diseases to undergo these screening tests. These include treadmill stress test, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, CT scans, and the like.

An advanced technology that merits mention here is ArterioVision developed by NASA. This software developed by NASA can actually measure the thickness of the inner layers of carotid arteries which help provide even minute evidence of any disease developing in the arteries.

High-resolution imaging is yet another leap in the field of technology to successfully fight heart disease. This is useful particularly in the case of atrial flutter, a kind of heart disease characterized by irregular heart beats. Three dimensional mapping and illustrations are the most useful in this lot.

When we look at the developing nations, unfortunately, their mortality rate due to heart related diseases at the middle age has increased. This is mainly due to the changes in the life style. The increased body weight and high cholesterol have also contributed much. The advanced technology to prevent and fight heart diseases is unfortunately available only to the developed nations of the world. The developing countries are not in a position to afford such cutting edge technology to be made available to their citizens. However, they can follow a simple three step method to minimize deaths due to cardiovascular diseases.

• Step 1: Identify the common causes of deaths related to heart diseases.

• Step 2: Make awareness among the public regarding such causes, risk factors, and the like.

• Step 3: Educate the mass on how to avoid such cardiac risk factors.

The developing countries can also make use of some of the knowledge already acquired by other countries for controlling the diseases related to the heart. The practices can be adapted to the cultural environment of the adopting country. For example, in a country which has a sizable vegetarian population, vegetarian food can be encouraged. But the bad part of such a diet like consumption of butter and its derivatives can be discouraged. Thus, a developing country can do much to improve on fighting the heart diseases as much as they can do to improve their economy with the help of modern technology.