Early warning signs of some cases of heart attacks 'being missed'

Conclusion Are doctors missing signs of heart attack in people admitted to hospital? The study results show that may be true in some cases, but there could be other explanations for these findings. One limitation of the study is that it doesn't show what tests were done, so we don't know whether people who'd complained of chest pain, for example, had tests for heart attacks. We don't know whether doctors actually missed the signs, or whether they investigated them but the tests were negative. It's also possible that – where people were admitted for one reason but eventually died of a heart attack – the initial diagnosis was the one most important to treat at the time. The point is that heart attacks brought on by other conditions are not easy to treat. Often very ill patients can have two or more chronic diseases (co-morbidities), which can trigger a range of interrelated complications. This issue of co-morbidities may also explain why people who had heart attacks as well as other conditions were more likely to die than those who had heart attack only. People with several conditions were also more likely to be frail and elderly, so less likely to survive a heart attack. While the study has a clear message for doctors – that possible signs of heart attack should always be looked for and risks acted on – there's also an important message for the rest of us. More than half of people who died of a heart attack didn't make it to hospital. Knowing the signs of a heart...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Medical practice Source Type: news