The burning question in minds of men and women during and immediately after a heart attack is, “Will I be able to go back to work?” “Will I be able to take care of my family?” It is difficult, if not impossible, for your doctor to tell you exactly what you will be able to do when you eventually leave the hospital, but if you understand the problem involved you may be able to help yourself.We must go back to the basic fact that your heart is a pump designed to pump blood. This muscular structure in a young adult has a phenomenal reserve capacity. On demand it may be able to pump seven or eight times as much blood per minute as it does when you are asleep. In other words, during extreme exercise your heart may be able to deliver 30 quarts of blood per minute to your body compared to the four quarts per minute that may be pumped during complete rest. As the years pass, the body ages and we are all aware that we no longer have, for example, the muscular strength that we had when we were twenty years old, nor at age sixty do we have the sense of sight or smell that we had when we were twenty years old.In a similar way the reserve capacity of your heart may be diminished by the process of aging. A person at age fifty may have a reserve capacity of five times, or possibly six times, the resting level of blood flow. We have stated previously that the result of a coronary thrombosis or myocardial infarction is the death of heart muscle. There is less heart muscle to pump the blood after a myocardial infarction than there was before the incident. The reserve capacity of the heart must, therefore, be diminished. This is the determining factor that will decide what you will or will not be able to do after your heart attack. If enough functioning muscle remains, you may be able to do practically the same things that you were able to do before your heart attack. This, of course, is particularly true if you had a large reserve capacity.The primary symptoms that you may recognize if you exceed your reserve capacity will probably be chest pain in the form of angina pectoris, fatigue, or shortness of breath on exertion. It is essential that the person who has recovered from a heart attack understand the factors that increase the demands upon the heart if he is to avoid difficulty and make the most of his physical impairment. The main factors that result in increased heart work are exercise, eating, emotional excitement, and extremes of temperature. Let us examine each of these in detail.When you exercise, as for example, taking a walk or hammering a nail, the muscles of your legs and arms are active and are doing work. This work demands increased food and oxygen to nourish the muscles of your legs and arms. Food and oxygen are carried to the muscles by blood that is pumped by your heart. Exercise, therefore, increases the work of the heart.The process of eating, and in particular digesting food, requires increased blood flow to the stomach and intestines. When food enters your stomach, the muscles of the stomach contract to mix the food with digestive juices and to propel the food to the intestinal tract. The intestinal tract also contracts to mix the food and to propel it further along. Great quantities of stomach acid and various digestive juices are poured into the intestinal tract to aid in digestion of the consumed food. These juices are produced by glands all of which depend upon blood for their raw materials. The production of digestive juices and the action of the intestinal muscles, therefore, require increased blood flow which must be supplied by the heart.A state of excitement or tension, anger, rage, or fear also results in increased heart work because these situations stimulate the adrenal glands, which produce adrenaline. The adrenaline circulates throughout the body and prepares the body for an emergency such as a fight or a flight (running away). The action of adrenaline upon the heart is to increase the rate of heart contraction and the work of the heart. A person who is frightened or angry, therefore, may have a heart that is working just as hard as if the man were actually running at full speed down the street.*12/309/5*

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1 Comment

1. 2012 Fashion ideas bb…

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   Trackback by deccccorative28 — December 6, 2011 @ 11:07 pm

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