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Mercy Health launches online assessment to help people understand their heart health
How healthy is your heart? Now you can find out in less than 5 minutes.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for American adults across most races and ethnicities, killing one person every 33 seconds nationwide. Still, fewer than half of Americans understand how widespread the disease is.
To raise awareness and make it easier for everyone to understand their risk of developing heart disease, Mercy Health recently launched an online assessment. Give people better information about their heart health in less time than a commercial break on a TV show.
“Mercy Health offers a heart health risk assessment online that is available to virtually anyone,” said Timothy D. Brennan, M.D., a cardiologist at Mercy Health. “It assesses risk based on traditional risk factors and provides a score of: low risk, medium risk, or high risk. You can then take the results to your doctor or cardiologist. ”
Traditional risk factors include diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking/smoking, age, family history, physical inactivity, and weight.
The assessment takes less than 5 minutes. During this time, you will be asked questions about your health, lifestyle, and family history. Fill in your height, weight, and age. Whether your father, siblings, or mother developed heart disease by a certain age. It then provides an estimate of your weekly activity level.
Once completed, you will receive a detailed risk report with personalized information and offers based on your answers.
“If your evaluation results in a ‘high risk’ score, you also have the option of being contacted by Mercy Health to see a cardiologist,” Dr. Brennan said. “Otherwise, your health risk assessment will be done anonymously, with the exception of sending you an email. If you would like to get in touch, you have that option. Otherwise, your results will be yours alone. Family members can also fill it out for their loved ones.”
Whether you are being evaluated by yourself or someone else, the goal is the same. “It brings a lot of peace of mind,” he said. “For the average layperson, it can be difficult to assess what your cholesterol should be or what your ‘significant family history’ of heart disease is.”
A low score gives you peace of mind that your lifestyle is helping you maintain cardiovascular health. A moderate-risk or high-risk score can help people get the care they need early, before they develop heart disease or while it is still in its early stages.
“We encourage you to share this information with your primary care provider and other health care professionals,” Dr. Brennan said. “They will tell you if you need follow-up or further tests.”
You can use this score to start a conversation with your health care provider about what you can do to reduce your risk factors. A high score does not mean someone definitely has heart disease or is likely to develop heart disease. This means the risk is high but requires evaluation by a medical professional.
When Dr. Brennan talks to patients about heart disease, he first asks about their activity level and whether they have symptoms.
“Not everyone has symptoms, and they don’t necessarily have traditional symptoms like angina or chest pain,” she said, adding that women sometimes experience shortness of breath or pain in their arms or jaw. Ta. “I’d like to ask if her activities have decreased in the past year or two.”
If you were able to walk two miles five times a week a few years ago, but now you can walk half a mile twice a week, it could be related to heart health, he said. To tell.
Dr. Brennan hopes the online assessment will motivate more people to take control of their health.
“People want to improve their health. No one wants to have a heart attack or stroke,” Dr. Brennan said. “By increasing awareness of your risk for heart disease, you can modify your risk factors, even if you don’t have an underlying condition. Some things you can’t change, such as who your parents are; You can control your diabetes, your blood pressure, and lower your cholesterol. And we can help.”
To receive a heart health risk assessment, visit merce.com/cincinnati.
USA TODAY Network’s editorial and news staff were not involved in the creation of this content.
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