Road to a healthy heart

For the past 17 years, IMH Hospital has been providing compassionate care using the latest techniques and a patient-centric approach to health issues

Established in 2005, International Modern Hospital (IMH), is a tertiary multi-speciality hospital with state-of-the-art facilities and expertise in all specialities, and with capabilities of providing treatment to all types of medical and surgical emergencies. The hospital has a fully equipped cardiac catheterisation lab from Philips to perform advanced interventional procedures, a 24/7 Emergency Unit with a dedicated chest pain unit and a 12 beds Intensive Care Unit. Our Cardiovascular Team has extensive experience in handling complex acute cardio-vascular cases, including heart attacks, uncontrolled hypertension, heart failure and arrhythmias, along with elective angiographies and management of chronic cardio-vascular diseases.

Our Hospital is also undergoing a significant transformation, as significant investments have been done to bring the latest high-standard medical equipment from Europe, including a brand new MRI from Siemens, two 3D laparoscopic towers, and new patient beds. The renovation of the building has also started, and the hospital will be fully revamped by Q2 2023, with a new elegant lobby, upgraded rooms in both Out-patients and In-patient departments, and modern furniture.

A new management team has joined IMH recently and is focusing on delivering high standard clinical quality built on evidenced-based protocols while offering excellent patient experience.

Insight into Causes of Heart-Related Diseases

Dr. Shereef ElBardisy is a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist. He is a graduate from Cairo University in Egypt and holds a Medical Doctorate (MD) from Al Azhar University, Egypt. He has been practicing in the UAE for more than 10 years, performing more than 2,000 procedures.

Excerpts from interview below:

Can you tell us about the leading causes of heart related diseases and how to prevent them? leading cause of watery heart-related diseases?

Heart diseases fall into many categories, the most common of which is the carotid artery disease, which occurs when fatty deposits (plaques) clog the blood vessels that deliver blood to your brain and head (carotid arteries). The blockage increases your risk of stroke, a medical emergency that occurs when the blood supply to the brain is interrupted or seriously reduced.

These include angina pectoris, often described as squeezing, pressure, heaviness, tightness or pain in the chest. It produces chest pain or discomfort that keeps coming back. It happens when some part of your heart doesn't get enough blood and oxygen. Angina can be a symptom of coronary artery disease (CAD). This occurs when arteries that carry blood to your heart become narrowed and blocked because of atherosclerosis or a blood clot. It can also occur because of unstable plaques, poor blood flow through a narrowed heart valve, a decreased pumping function of the heart muscle, as well as a coronary artery spasm. One leading cause of heart disease is hypertension, especially if it is not controlled, leading to high blood pressure. It can also be caused by people who suffer from diabetes, or those with high cholesterol, which is caused by an unhealthy diet. This leads to cholesterol being depositing in the arteries and clogging them over time.

There is another very important point as well, which is smoking. Smokers always have a higher risk of developing heart problems and even heart attacks. This mainly happens because smoke smoking has many factors most important of which it increases the cholesterol in the blood.

Family history and genetics are another factor. People with a family history of heart disease are at a higher risk than the general population for developing heart-related problems.

To summarise, we can put the risk factors for heart disease into two categories modifiable and non-modifiable. Family history falls into the non-modifiable as genes cannot be changed. Similarly, elderly people, who are at higher risk, all fall in this category.

What are the symptoms to look out for?

Leading causes that one should watch out for include hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, family history and any of the risk factors that we talked about. People suffering from these should get regular checkups with a treating physician, because it's for early detection of any unnoticed symptoms of heart problems. Apart from that, the most important symptom that we all should look out for is chest pain, especially if it is with exertion, or with emotional stress. Shortness of breath is another symptom to watch out for, especially if its while doing some mundane task such as walking up a flight of stairs, this could be a sign of a weak heart. Arrhythmia, which is abnormal heartbeat, is also a cause for concern and needs to be kept in check.

Dr. Wael has over 20 years of rich experience in cardiovascular surgery from reputed hospitals in France, Syria, Poland and the UAE. He has performed more than 7,200 cardio-vascular and thoracic operations of different types and in different situations (elective, urgent and emergent); 4,000 coronaries, 1,000 valvulars, 700 pediatrics under one year, 500 thoracic, 1,000 vascular.