Tag: treatment-seeking delay behaviour

Yale Heart Study asks why we wait so long before seeking help in mid-heart attack

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 27 Comments

Did you know that even when experiencing textbook heart attack symptoms (like my own chest and left arm pain), people wait an average of four hours before seeking medical help?  The tragic irony is that heart patients who do best are those who can be treated within the first hour of those initial acute symptoms.

Heart attacks are dangerous and scary – so why do so many of us suffer silently for hours (and in many cases, far longer?)  This treatment-seeking delay behaviour concerns many researchers, including Yale University’s Dr. Angelo Alonzo. He told me:

“Ask people what they would do if they had a heart attack and, of course, they’d all  insist they would seek care immediately.  Sounds easy!  But in reality, few people actually do drop everything to get help.”    Continue reading “Yale Heart Study asks why we wait so long before seeking help in mid-heart attack” →

Researchers openly mock the ‘myth’ of women’s unique heart attack symptoms

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 36 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

I was a woman on a mission while covering the proceedings of the 64th Annual Canadian Cardiovascular Congress in Vancouver.  Specifically, my mission was to track down researchers working in the area of women’s heart disease. They were, sadly, few and far between, my heart sisters, as I had to explain here earlier.

“Out of over 700 scientific papers presented at this conference, I could count on one hand the number that focused on women’s heart health.”

Luckily, I did track down Dr. Karin Humphries from the Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, and her University of British Columbia doctoral student Mona Izadnegahdar. Their paper found, not surprisingly, that women under age 55 fare worse than their male counterparts after a heart attack.(1)

While chatting with me about their findings, Dr. Humphries and Mona happened to mention the “popular misconception that women and men present with different heart attack symptoms”.   Continue reading “Researchers openly mock the ‘myth’ of women’s unique heart attack symptoms” →

Are you a priority in your own life?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 23 Comments

red shoes collage

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

Five months after surviving a misdiagnosed “widow maker” heart attack, I attended the WomenHeart Science & Leadership Symposium for Women With Heart Disease at Mayo Clinic.  Cardiologist Dr. Sharonne Hayes (founder of the Mayo Women’s Heart Clinic) told us about a study on women’s life priorities called Hierarchy of Female Concerns that asked its female participants this one question:

“What is most important to you?”

Now, when I do presentations about women’s heart health, I like to ask my audiences to guess in advance the correct order of this study’s top six answers, just for fun.

These rankings are surprising, in an amusing-yet-oddly-pathetic way.  The order of our reported priorities may also help to explain why, even when women are experiencing dangerous cardiac symptoms, they are significantly more likely than our male counterparts to delay seeking treatment if something ‘more important’ crops up.

‘More important?‘ What could possibly be more important when you’re having a heart attack? Check out the terrific 3-minute Elizabeth Banks film “Just a Little Heart Attack” for a brilliant example of this classic  treatment-seeking delay behaviour.

And then see if this list of women’s reported priorities matches the answers that you might give, too: keep reading…