Seven Minutes That Could Save Your Life
By Felix Alfonso PeNa, Reading Eagle, Pa.
Jun. 11–A seven-minute online quiz has the potential to stave off the leading killer in the United States — heart disease.
Ask Merilyn Donaldson, 66, a nurse who works as an IV therapist at St. Joseph Medical Center, Bern Township.
The hospital offered employees a chance to take its free HeartAware quiz in May, a week before it was publicly available on the hospital Web site.
Donaldson took the quiz and learned that her chance of developing cardiac disease was 5 percent or greater.
"Most people taking the test scored between 0 to 1 percent," said Donaldson, who lives in Spring Township.
Donaldson then met with Karen Mengel, the HeartAware coordinator at St. Joseph. That led to more screenings, tests and ultimately to a CT scan that revealed calcium deposits in Donaldson’s coronary arteries.
"That showed I had a moderately high possibility of having a heart attack," she said.
Donaldson is seeing a cardiologist and is taking two medications to reduce cholesterol, she said.
Helping people learn their cardiac risk is important, Mengel said, because for many people, the fi rst sign of heart disease is sudden death.
"Last year, 750,000 Americans died from heart disease and almost half of them had no symptoms," Mengel said.
To help reduce that number, St. Joseph Medical Center recently began offering HeartAware, a free, online questionnaire that helps users assess their heart risk and take steps to prevent or treat heart disease.
"We want to keep people from dying suddenly from problems that often can be detected and treated before they become catastrophic," said Dr. Ronald Polinsky, a member of Berks Cardiologists and the medical director of HeartAware.
The quiz asks questions about such risk factors as weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, family history and smoking.
Users immediately receive an assessment of their risk for heart disease, Mengel said.
People who meet the clinical criteria for being at risk for cardiovascular disease have the option of requesting a telephone call from the HeartAware program to discuss the results and further screening options, said Mengel, who added that personal information remains confi dential.
Mengel said that the program has been successful since it went public May 22. The site has had more than 1,000 hits, with 900 completed questionnaires, and she has called 75 people at their request.
Users have the option of remaining anonymous.
"We have people who are at risk and choose not to accept a phone call," she said. "But at least the test will tell them they’re vulnerable, and they can take that information to their family physician."
Reading Hospital also offers interactive tools on its Web site that teach about heart-disease risk, and there’s a sizable health library on other topics.
"It allows patients and family members to better understand certain medical conditions, treatments, and procedures in order to better discuss these topics with their physicians," Reading Hospital spokesman William J. Rudolph Jr. said.
Officials from both hospitals stressed that online information is not meant to replace the care and advice of a physician.
—–
To see more of the Reading Eagle, or to subscribe, go to http://www.readingeagle.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, Reading Eagle, Pa.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.