With Symptoms Of A Heart Attack, Women Are More Likely To Call An Ambulance For Their Husbands Than For Themselves

2023 Author: Abraham Higgins | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 23:16

With symptoms of a heart attack, women are more likely to call an ambulance for their husbands than for themselves

Due to late treatment for a heart attack, women often do not receive timely assistance. In surviving patients, this leads to an increased risk of heart failure later in life. Scientists urged women to be more attentive to their health.

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Women are more likely to call an ambulance for their husbands, fathers, or brothers with heart attack symptoms, but not for themselves. Polish scientists spoke about the data of the new study at the congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), urging women to take care of themselves.

Professor Mariusz Gisior, the author of the study, commenting on the results, said that women care less about themselves because they are more busy with household chores, often do not devote enough time to themselves and hesitate to call an ambulance when they experience heart attack symptoms.

Study co-author Dr. Marek Gierlotka added that women usually make sure that male relatives receive medical attention if necessary, forgetting about themselves.

In total, Polish scientists studied 7582 patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). The disease develops when, due to the cessation of blood flow in one of the arteries that supply the heart with blood, a section of the heart muscle dies. The rise of the ST segment on the electrocardiogram indicates that the infarction affects all layers of the myocardium.

With a heart attack, it is important to restore blood circulation as soon as possible. Doctors are advised to do this with a stent within 90 minutes of diagnosis. Overall, the study found that 45% of patients received adequate medical care within the recommended time frame, but there were relatively few women among them. And although the mortality rate in patients who did not receive treatment during the so-called "therapeutic window" was not higher in the hospital, later they more often developed heart failure.

According to the study, 40% of patients' ECG results were transmitted from an ambulance. However, if for men this indicator (40%) did not change with age, then for women it increased - from 34% for women under the age of 54 to 45% for women over the age of 75. Professor Gizior explains such results by the fact that young women usually have less time to call an ambulance.

Dr. Gerlotka believes more efforts are needed to improve the quality of prehospital heart attack care in young women. He believes that there is a need to raise awareness among medical staff and the general public that women, including young women, also suffer from heart attacks and are more likely to have atypical signs and symptoms, which makes them more likely to delay. calling an ambulance.