Health
Off the beat – the broken heart
Of a broken heart die – this may in fact happen. The Broken-Heart syndrome but has mostly nothing to do with the Beloved or the loved one has left.
Heartbreaks can be painful. Sometimes it takes a long time, until the emotional wounds have healed, and the broken heart back in beat. When Broken-Heart-syndrome but it’s not about scorned love.
The Name come therefore, that the symptoms always with an engaging, emotional or psychological event go hand in hand, says the cardiologist Heribert bridge from Erkelenz. “Not infrequently play very personal things on a role. Therefore it is said: ‘It breaks your heart’ – in the truest sense of the word. This, then, is the Broken-Heart syndrome.”
Difficult Diagnosis
Chest pain and shortness of breath, the small coronary vessels draw themselves spasmodically together. The muscle of the heart is poorly supplied with blood – symptoms like a heart attack. So erhing it also Monika Vogler: “I had chest pain and have difficult to get air. My doctor has immediately an ECG done; it is very badly failed. I then came immediately to the hospital.” Three days remained of the 75-Year-old in the intensive care unit. The Diagnosis: Broken-Heart Syndrome.
The heart can quickly get out of sync
A correct diagnosis is usually difficult, because the signs are similar to those of a heart attack. “..Hypoperfusion leads to a pronounced heart failure,” explains Brück. “In this Phase, it is also life-threatening heart-rhythm disturbances may occur.”
The risk of a sudden cardiac death is one to three percent. Usually make the changes to the heart muscle within a few weeks back fully. For those, however, that such Broken-Heart-Sydnrom experience, it is a shock.
Stress as a cause
Recent studies show that patients with Broken Heart syndrome in the cardiac apex in particular, many receptors have. These are binding sites for stress hormones such as norepinephrine and epinephrine. “If someone is under physical or mental Stress set in, he pours out many of these stress hormones,” explains the Erfurt cardiologist Jana Boer. “Through the many binding sites in the cardiac apex can be especially many stress hormones to be absorbed. This in turn leads to an acute, sudden malfunction of the heart muscle cells.”
In Ultraschallbefund do it the impression of an acute heart attack in the Herzvorderwand, explained the Doctor further. “The patients have a reduced Herzpumpleistung, as well as in acute Infarktereignis. Your coronary arteries are completely free.”
Major Gaps In Our Knowledge
When Broken-Heart-syndrome are the changes in the heart muscle are often quickly disappeared, the ECG returned to normal. Still but there are too few Doctors know what they’re doing. “We have in our professional Association now a Register is started, in which we, for example, patient data in the Central record. So we want to find out which medicines should be given. This Register exists since about five years ago,” says Boer.
Little known among Physicians: Broken-Heart syndrome
Physicians share experiences on the treatment of their patients. Number One priority: the victims need to reduce Stress. “We have found that it is very important that these patients also have an ongoing psychotherapy to undergo, so that it does not return to such stressful situations.”
Boer is of the view that Doctors should be better trained. “There are some colleagues who never before with the Broken-Heart-syndrome had to do, and then tell the patient: your coronary arteries are free. You had a heart attack, you are healthy.”
Meanwhile, there is a Register in Zurich, where Italy, France and Germany are involved. Also Doctors from the USA provide data. “We have a lot of Knowledge collect, how we best with patients with Broken-Heart-syndrome’, says Boer.
Frauensache
Broken-Heart-patients have to 90 women. “It is estimated that estrogen receptors play a role,” explains cardiologist Brück. “They are closely related with the nitrate receptors, leading to a widening of the vessels.”
Women over the age of 50 and in the menopause are particularly at risk. “The female sex hormone, Estrogen, protects us largely in front of the Broken-Heart-Symptom,” says Boer. “Menopausal women react more sensitive to Stress. The Estrogen levels decreases, and by the omission of the Östrogenschutzes women are more susceptible to the effects of stress hormones. This also has an effect on the Broken-Heart syndrome.”
The heart and the squid
What has the Broken-Heart syndrome with an invertebrate to do?
There were Japanese, which is the Broken-Heart syndrome, in 1990, described for the first time. In the Asian country, there are many projects that deal with acute Stress and its effects to deal with. One of the reasons are the frequent earthquakes. Scientists have investigated how such natural disasters affect people. “You found that in the context of this earthquake acute deaths will occur, nothing to do with a heart attack have to do,” says Brück.
In Japan, the disease-sounding name Tako-Tsubo cardiomyopathy. Tako-Tsubo describes a traditional Japanese Tintenfischfalle. It is a round pot, into the sea dropped. “The octopus walking into it, and then the pots are hoisted. The squid are then in the pot caught”, explains Boer. The heart has in Ultraschallbefund the same shape as this octopus-pot – hence the Name. This, however, is a term you hardly with Heartbreak or even a broken heart in connection would bring.