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FRIDAY, March 15, 2019 (HealthDay News) – A ground-breaking new study is encouraging news for older Americans.
Since the mid-1990s, the number of seniors who have suffered a heart attack or died has declined dramatically – it has been proven that heart attack prevention and care improvement campaigns Patients are bearing fruit, said researchers at Yale University.
The study of more than 4 million Medicare patients revealed that hospitalizations for heart attack had dropped by 38% between 1995 and 2014. At the same time, the number of deaths occurring within 30 days of a heart attack had reached its lowest historical level, 12% or -third since 1995.
"These are really incredible advances," said Harlan Krumholz, senior researcher and professor of cardiology.
The study focused on Medicare patients, since people aged 65 and older have the highest risk of heart attack and account for up to two-thirds of them, has not it? -he declares.
The recovery is the result of significant efforts to change people's lives to reduce heart attacks, as well as to improve care so that more patients can survive, Krumholz said.
Since the 1990s, the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the American Heart Association (AHA), the American College of Cardiology and other organizations have focused on prevention.
Efforts focused on lifestyle changes, including the adoption of healthy eating habits and physical exercise. They also helped patients reduce their blood pressure and cholesterol, two key factors in heart attack.
Hospital care is also better now than in the 1990s, Krumholz said. Patients who arrive at the hospital with a heart attack are now being treated in minutes, using procedures to open blocked arteries, rather than the hours it took before, he noted.
And more and more patients are leaving the hospital with prescriptions for blood pressure drugs, aspirin and statins, which help prevent a recurrence of a heart attack.
Although the costs badociated with heart attacks have increased, their prevention and improved survival ultimately save money on other health care costs, Krumholz added.
But the picture is not quite rosy.
Some places have seen little or no change in heart attacks since the 1990s. These areas require special attention to improve care, said Krumholz.
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