A Step-by-Step Guide to an Executive Heart Health Visit
You sit at the head of a company, you’re an elected official., or maybe you’re a health care provider. Whatever the circumstances, you’ve got a good number of people who are relying on you to show up to work each day and get things done.
Not that we want to place more pressure on you, but it’s important to understand that someone has a heart attack every 40 seconds in the United States, and that heart disease is the number one cause of death in our country.
At Upper East Side Cardiology, Dr. Satjit Bhusri and the team created specialized executive heart health services that help professionals stay one step ahead of heart disease and on top of their game.
In the following, we explore what you can expect during your executive heart health visits with us.
Preventive screenings
Our first order of business is to use all of the preventive screening tools at our disposal, which include the following:
Electrocardiogram (EKG)
This is a frontline diagnostic tool that measures your heart’s electrical activity. While we always refer to the heart as a muscle, the muscle contraction is initiated by an electrical impulse.
Echocardiogram (ECHO)
With an echocardiogram, we use soundwaves to get an image of your heart, allowing us to see these internal structures.
Stress testing
we find something on the EKG or ECHO that we want to explore further, we might have you take a stress test. As the name implies, we perform this test while you’re putting your heart through its paces — perhaps on a treadmill or stationary bike. While you’re moving, we use an EKG to monitor your heart’s activity under stress.
Carotid artery ultrasound
To assess your risk for stroke, we will likely perform a carotid artery ultrasound so we can see if there are any blockages in the main blood vessels that travel to your brain.
While the tools above are more technologically advanced, we also include blood pressure monitoring under preventive screenings. Hypertension is one of the major risk factors for heart disease, and it affects nearly half of adults in the US. So, the quick-and-easy blood pressure test is a no-brainer when it comes to screening your cardiovascular health.
Lab tests
In addition to the effective screening tools we deploy to evaluate your cardiovascular health, we also use lab testing.
For example, we regularly measure your lipid profile as part of our executive heart health care. About 86 million adults in the US have high cholesterol levels and, like hypertension, this condition is a major risk factor for heart disease.
We also turn to blood work to measure your blood sugar as well as certain ceramides and peptides that can provide us with clues about the state of your heart health.
Moving toward better heart health
Whatever we find during your comprehensive heart health assessment will guide as moving forward. As part of your executive heart health care, we devise nutrition, lifestyle, and exercise plans that can improve your cardiovascular health.
If necessary, we can also place you on medications that play an important role in preventing serious cardiovascular complications.
Whatever your needs, we’re there with you every step of the way, closely monitoring your heart health and intervening when necessary.
As you can see, we leave no stone unturned when it comes to our executive heart health care. If you have more questions about this branch of our preventive cardiology care, please contact our New York City office on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to set up an appointment. You can also call (212) 752-3464.