Heart Health
Keeping your heart healthy requires a combination of smart lifestyle choices and great medical care. At Baptist Health Deaconess, we are here to help ensure you have both. Our cardiovascular team educates women about heart disease prevention. We also conduct regular screenings and tests and offer a variety of treatments for many heart conditions.
Women's Heart Health Care
We know that women’s heart health needs special care. Our experts apply the latest knowledge about women and heart disease to give all of our patients the best treatment possible. When you come to Baptist Health Deaconess for heart health care, you can expect:
- A commitment to woman-specific care: Although heart disease is just as common in women as in men, their symptoms and risk factors can be different. We use the latest evidence-based medicine to treat the specific heart health needs of women.
- Focus on prevention: We host annual women’s heart health programs, such as Ladies in Red, to promote awareness and educate women on prevention and risk factors for heart disease.
- Expert staff: Our cardiology team includes specialists with decades of experience in women's heart health. Many of our physicians are also actively involved in cardiac research in an effort to provide the most up-to-date level of care.
Women’s Heart Health Conditions We Treat
We treat a wide range of women's heart health conditions, including:
- Coronary artery or vascular disease
- Heart failure
- Heart attack
- Heart rhythm disorders
Women's Heart Health Treatments and Services
We provide patients with a full range of services for women's heart health care. These include:
- Education and prevention: We offer regular women's heart health screenings as well as education on how lifestyle changes can help prevent heart disease.
- Accurate diagnosis: Our heart care team uses the most up-to-date screening tests and technologies to diagnose heart disease even in its earliest, most treatable stages.
- Latest technology and techniques for treatment: Our highly skilled team of cardiovascular surgeons is able to perform many lifesaving surgeries using minimally invasive techniques. Baptist Health Deaconess is one of only two heart care groups in Kentucky performing radial artery catheterization – a newer, less invasive technique for opening blockages in blood vessels.
- Comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation: We design personalized programs to help you recover after a heart attack or heart surgery and prevent future complications.
Facts About Women’s Heart Health
There are important facts about women’s heart health that even the most health-conscious person may not know. Contrary to what some may believe, heart disease is the leading cause of death in women, making it of the utmost importance to know the facts. Facts about women’s heart health include but are not limited to:
- Heart disease is the leading cause of death in women, and takes more lives a year than breast cancer and lung cancer combined
- A higher percentage of women will die within a year of having a heart attack than men
- Often, women’s symptoms of a heart attack are atypical and can look like gastrointestinal upset, jaw pain, shoulder pain, pain in the upper back, or extreme fatigue
- Diabetes is a risk factor for heart disease
- Women who had gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, or high blood pressure during pregnancy are at a greater risk for heart disease
- Young women (under 55) can have heart disease and experience heart attacks
- Smoking increases your risk of heart attack