Coronary Blockage: Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment - Essay Sample

Introduction

When the coronary artery undergoes a sudden or unexpected blockage, the syndromes of acute coronary results, the obstruction leads to a medical emergency, which is a heart attack (myocardial infarction) or angina. The leading cause of blockage is a blood clot. When the clot occurs in the heart, a heart attack gets experienced. There are instances of spasm formation, which also result in a heart attack. It gets witnessed when an individual consumes drugs like cocaine. The resulting condition is dependent on the amount and location of the blockage. On the one hand, heart attack refers to the death of the tissue present in the heart, resulting from no supply of blood. On the other hand, angina is a chest discomfort problem that arises from an insufficient flow of blood into the coronary or blood vessels of the muscles present in the heart. The flow of oxygen is deficient in the heart resulting in this condition. Many individuals worldwide die due to unexpected cardiac or heart attacks every year. According to research findings by Peter Crosta in 2008 on heart attack and angina, roughly 20% of the patients diagnosed with heart attack experience chest pain (angina), a year afterward (Maddox et al., 2008). The study is limited to analyzing angina-myocardial infarction medical problems, their symptoms, therapeutic implications, precautionary measures as well as discuss ways of handling the emergency.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Related Symptoms

Individuals suffering from angina frequently complain of a feeling of ache, lightness, heaviness, pressure, or squeezing beneath the sternum (breastbone). The sensation is usually said to be a discomfort instead of pain. Other areas where discomfort may experience include in the jaw, teeth, or throat, in the entire back, in the arms or shoulders. Individuals also experience body sweating, feeling of light-headedness, fatigue, dizziness, or one may be unable to do exercises (Maddox et al., 2008). Based on a heart attack, chest pain is usually felt at the center of the chest and can spread through the back, left arm, or jaw. It is not rare for the pain to extend to the right arm. The pain of both angina and heart attack are similar only that that of a heart attack is a bit severe, resting or nitroglycerin fail to relieve it, and it lasts longer. In some cases, heart attack pain gets felt in the abdomen just as that of indigestion cases. Most women, individuals with diabetes or heart failure, those with stroke, and individuals with 75 years and above, who have heart attack problems experience no chest pain (Maddox et al., 2008). Unlike in angina, an individual with a heart attack also experiences sudden and heavy sweating, actual fainting and heavy heart pounding are other symptoms of a heart attack. When an individual has a heart attack, they may be anxious, sweaty, have an impending doom sense, and their feet and hands slightly turn blue.

Implications of Angina-Myocardial Infarction

Individuals who get said to experience angina after a cardiac event incidence get said to have worse social, physical, and emotional life quality. High levels of depression also get experienced as compared to those individuals without angina. An Individual's appetite also rises, and they end up consuming large meals. Unstable angina is the most dangerous of all that needs emergency treatment. When an individual has this condition, the next expected outcome is a heart attack. In cases where an individual’s angina is triggered by exercises, an individual experiences attacks whenever they exert themselves. (Maddox et al., 2008). Some may find challenges when winter comes along in case where their angina gets triggered by cold weather. Individuals may also find it difficult to stand for long hours while in the shower. For patients with myocardial infarction, their lifestyle changes in that the condition affects their ability to regain or retain employment due to health insurance and productivity issues. A heart attack may result in heart failure issues, which makes an individual more prone to arrhythmias, or heart rhythms abnormalities. Depression and anxiety are also some of the heart attack implications.

Precautionary Measures or Treatment Modifications Needed

When a patient experiences a heart attack, it gets treated as an emergency. To treat myocardial infarction, blood thinners like aspirin are given to the patient to help get rid of the clots and boost blood flow. To dissolve the clots, thrombolytic get used. To prevent existing clots from becoming more extensive and to hinder the formation of new clots, anti-platelet drugs like clopidogrel get given to the patient. For the blood vessels to widen, nitroglycerin gets used. Beta-blockers and ACE inhibitors are vital in lowering blood pressure (Maddox et al., 2008). In cases of discomfort, a patient gets given pain relievers. Thrombolytic drugs used to dissolve clots may lead to bleeding; thus, individuals with acute blood pressure, past stroke cases, and incidents of surgery a month before or who have digestive tract bleeding should not get given the drugs. Patients with unstable angina or elevated myocardial infarction get also said not to benefit immediately from thrombolytic medications.

Steps to Handle the Emergency if and When It Occurs

When a patient experiences a heart attack, the first step is to call for emergency attention. The second step is for the patient to take an aspirin drug, which will help prevent clot formation and boost oxygen flow. On arrival to the emergency room, the doctor should try unblocking the arteries using an angioplasty procedure to increase the blood supply to the heart (Maddox et al., 2008). During this procedure, a thin tube termed as a catheter gets inserted with a balloon attached. Inflating the balloon reopens the artery, thus aid in unblocking the blockage. A CABG (Coronary Artery Bypass Graft) procedure may, in some cases, get performed. The procedure aims to reroute the arteries and veins to permit blood flow.

Reference

Maddox, T. M., Reid, K. J., Spertus, J. A., Mittleman, M., Krumholz, H. M., Parashar, S., ... & Rumsfeld, J. S. (2008). Angina at one year after myocardial infarction: prevalence and associated findings. Archives of internal medicine, 168(12), 1310-1316. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/414326