Pumping Marvellous

New Heart FailureDevice

Many patients with heart failure have enlarged hearts, which occurs as the heart loses its ability to pump and leads to tiredness and breathlessness. The theory behind the device is that by protecting the heart from the effects of adrenaline, which causes the heart to work faster and enlarge, it will begin to shrink and pump more efficiently.

The device, which is similar to a pacemaker, is fitted under the patient’s skin in the chest and attached to the vagus nerve that leads to both the heart and brain. It is an approach that is being used to treat depression and epilepsy currently but may have other beneficial effects. Once activated the device uses electrical pulses to stimulate the nerve to help improve cardiac function and life expectancy.

The vagus nerve is part of the autonomic nervous system, which controls functions of the body that are not under voluntary control, such as heart rate. It passes through the neck as it travels between the chest, abdomen and the lower part of the brain.

The trial sponsored by Boston Scientific Corporation involves 96 patients at 25 sites across Europe. The Bristol team are co-ordinating the trial across the UK, which is expected to finish in 2013. The trial is called: NECTAR-HF (Neural Cardiac Therapy for Heart Failure) and is an international clinical study which will examine whether vagal nerve stimulation can restore autonomic balance and therefore improve heart function and inhibit progression of heart failure.

Julian Paton said: “More than a million adults in the UK suffer from heart failure, this new treatment has to date shown promising results in both animals and humans and could offer new hope in improving both the quality and longevity of life for UK patients. We have no idea how it works but are planning a sub-study to work this out.”

Angus Nightingale added: “It is really exciting that Bristol is at the cutting edge of new research into heart failure. This is a great example of research where collaboration between clinicians and scientists in Bristol is making a difference to patients with heart problems. We are the first team to implant a vagal nerve stimulator into a patient in the UK. The idea behind this is that chronic autonomic imbalance is believed to be a risk factor of the progression of heart failure and adverse cardiovascular events. The stimulation should alter the balance of the system and improve cardiac function.”

Heart Failure Rehab rears its ugly head again

We presume this article rings bells with people?

More heart patients should benefit from cardiac rehabilitation, health campaigners have said. They made the plea after new figures showed just 3% of eligible patients with heart failure were offered this, compared to about two-thirds of those who have had either a heart attack or cardiac bypass surgery.

Across Scotland, a total of 65.2% of heart attack patients were referred for cardiac rehabilitation, as were 68.5% of people who had bypass surgery. But just 3.1% of those with heart failure were referred for rehabilitation, along with only 7.4% of those with unstable angina. Pumping Marvellous find this digraceful and this indicates the attitude towards Heart Failure and how to deal with the ever growing problem by the NHS.

While 7,845 heart attack patients were referred for rehabilitation between April 2010 and March 2011, only 144 people with heart failure and 340 with unstable angina were put forward.

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) Scotland and Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland are now calling for more of these patents to benefit from the treatment. The two charities argued that rehabilitation only costed about £600 per patient, and could help save lives, with heart patients 30% less likely to die over a 10-year period if they have taken part in a cardiac rehab programme.

Ben McKendrick, senior policy and public affairs manager at BHF Scotland, said: “Cardiac rehab saves lives but there is an unacceptable gulf between the levels of support offered to patients with different heart conditions.

“When someone suffers a heart problem – be it angina, a heart attack or heart failure – they not only suffer a damaged heart but often a damaged spirit as well. Heart patients tell us that cardiac rehab helps mend that spirit and puts them on the road to living a full life again.”

Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said “excellent” progress had been made in offering rehabilitation. She said: “In 2007 around 45% of people in the clinical priority groups had access to cardiac rehabilitation, this figure has now risen to 65%. While this substantial increase is a great achievement, we recognise that there is still much more to do to help improve the quality of care for people living with heart failure.

“Our National Advisory Committee on heart disease will continue to work closely with cardiac services and the voluntary sector to take this forward. Our focus is not just on providing the best possible care in the acute setting, but also on helping people’s longer-term recovery in their own communities.”

UK Heart Failure Day Friday 11th May 2012

Pumping Marvellous is promoting UK Heart Failure Day which this year lands on Friday 11th May 2012. Last year Pumping Marvellous promoted the day by working with Asda to inform their customers and won tickets to the British Society for Heart Failure conference at the Queen Elizabeth 2nd Conference Centre in London last year. We aim to better our offering this year and we are not only in Asda in the East Lancashire area but are also promoting awareness of Heart Failure all week at the Royal Blackburn Hospital with a bright and attractive stand. Through our websites and social media we will also be pushing the word out onto the streets everyday.

Is Telehealth really the solution?

There is currently a lot of reporting in the press on “Telehealth” trials and how it could save the NHS £billions by remotely monitoring a patients condition. I suppose what they are intimating is it’s like having a nurse at the other end of the phone 24hrs a day 7 days a week. We do agree that this approach is a good addition to services for people with long term conditions that need managing however what a machine can’t help you with is the emotional isolation from information that a human can give. The output is black and white.

It is all well a good that these systems can save valuable resource in the long term however our opinion is that if clinicians become over reliant then patients will inevitably make mistakes, not be consistent how they use the telehealth system, a bit like forgetting to take your prescribed medicines and therefore you get to a “what’s the point in having it” as misinformation is worse than no information sometimes. You will also have the spectre of “Big Brother” looking over your shoulder. Many patients are brusied and battered with the torrent of information that they recieve and a lot of the time if this information is not delivered correctly it can be seen as “Big Brother” telling you what to do. The system is great for producing Health Data.

There is a place for “Telehealth” in the pathway to self management but it is only one element and should be treated as an information provider not as a golden solution. Unfortunatley the obsession with this system has led to yet another justification that it’s all about saving money.

Revolutionary Treatment for Heart Failure

This is a truly amazing breakthrough in removing fluid from patients – this is maybe one of the most revolutionary breakthroughs in HF treatment – You need to listen to this http://soundcloud.com/pumping-marvellous/bbc

Seaweed Juice may save Heart Attack patients?

An Australian grandmother had a liquid derived from seaweed injected into her  heart, in a world-first procedure poised to dramatically boost heart attack  survival rates. Pauline Fulton underwent the treatment in a Melbourne hospital two weeks ago,  two days after she suffered a major heart attack. Dr. William van Gaal, a cardiologist who performed the procedure, said it  could revolutionize treatment for heart attack patients and save lives.

Many who suffer major heart attacks later die of heart failure after their  heart becomes enlarged as it compensates for the damage, van Gaal said.

But it was hoped the liquid, bio-absorbable cardiac matrix, would prevent the  heart enlarging, and heart failure developing.

In the 30-minute procedure, van Gaal injected 0.13 fluid ounces of the  “liquid device” into the blocked artery, which was absorbed by the damaged heart  muscle.

It then formed a gel that acted as a scaffold to support the heart muscle as  it recovered and prevented the organ becoming bigger, he said. After six weeks,  the liquid device, which had no side-effects, would dissolve and be excreted  from the body through the kidneys.

Standard treatment was to give patients tablets to prevent their heart  enlarging, but they were not always effective, van Gaal said.

Fulton, 64, became the first of 300 patients who will have the experimental  treatment in a worldwide study.

It could be routine treatment within three years, van Gaal said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/04/27/seaweed-liquid-saves-heart-attack-victim-in-world-first-treatment/#ixzz1tFtOZc8k

DNAplays a part in immune system reaction to Heart Failure

British Heart Foundation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

DNA from a person’s own heart can play a significant part in heart failure by wrongly activating the immune response. A study co-funded by the British Heart Foundation and carried out by researchers in the UK and Japan found that in some people with this DNA the immune response is triggered during heart failure. This causes inflammation which makes the heart muscles less effective and reduces the ability to pump blood around the body.
The study, published by the journal Nature, found that the immune system is triggered by the release of DNA from the energy-generating structures in heart cells called mitochondria. Mitochondria evolved billions of years from bacteria and now share a similar DNA footprint, often causing a mistaken response from the immune system which recognises it as bacteria. “This intriguing discovery is an important breakthrough in our understanding of why, during heart failure, the immune system becomes activated without the presence of any obvious external threat,” Dr Shannon Amoils, research advisor at the BHF said.

Curry Pots and the Preston Health Mela…