Cardiovascular Evaluation in Lexington, KY

Cardiovascular Evaluation Healthtalk Transcript:

Kelly Waespe, MD, Cardiology
Baptist Health Lexington

Kelly Waespe, MD:

Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of both men and women in Kentucky. We still live in a tobacco-dominated state. I still have a lot of smokers as patients and a lot of people with genetic risk factors — family members who've had heart attacks. Generally, people are sent to me for something that's found in their primary care doctor's office, or they're sent to me because of symptoms, and those might include chest pain, shortness of breath, or heart-racing symptoms.

I like to divide the heart into three sections using the house as an analogy; the plumbing system, the foundation, and the electrical system. The plumbing system would be evaluated by a stress test, so that's looking for blockages. A stress test involves walking on the treadmill, and then we look at the heart before and after with different types of pictures. If you have a murmur or a structural heart problem, that's evaluated on an echo, which is an ultrasound of the heart.

A heart monitor looks at the electrical system of the heart or heart rhythm issues. If you're getting a heart monitor, it's usually a wearable patch or sticker that's placed on your chest, and you usually wear it for several days or up to several weeks.

I've got a lot of patients who are motivated after finding heart disease, who go to cardiac rehab programs after a stent, who get better exercise endurance, who get better with their shortness of breath, and they do well after that.