WHAT’S AT THE HEART OF A DECISION FOR PATIENTS WHO MAY NEED STENTS?
Understanding the right questions to ask about stents can have a meaningful impact on patient health
In the last 20 years, treatment options have proven so commonplace and effective in treating coronary artery disease (CAD), the most common type of heart disease, that many patients spend little time asking doctors about treatment advances and benefits. They instead limit their questions to economic or logistical matters, but what they should be asking is how quickly they can get back to their daily lives.
In fact, a recent Harris survey showed that most Americans have little information about stents until they develop CAD. So what are the other questions that patients should be
asking? What are the latest developments in stent technology? What benefits do these advances offer patients? Who are the best candidates?
Knowing the right questions to ask proved to be of special significance for CAD patient Shawna Dukes. A combination of active research and persistence with doctors enabled Shawna to ask the right questions, which ultimately saved her life. After consulting with a number of physicians who could not determine the cause of her extreme fatigue and overall discomfort, she finally found answers from her interventional cardiologist. He determined that getting a stent that promotes faster healing was the right treatment option for her, and one that gave her back control of her health again.
Shawna is just one of the more than 15 million Americans affected by CAD.[i] For the many others affected by CAD, understanding advances in stent technology can be the first step in becoming an active, knowledgeable advocate for your health.
Shawna and her interventional cardiologist Dr. Colin Barker of Houston Methodist Hospital shared their personal experience, provide an overview of this evolution in stent technology, and helped to answer the toughest questions surrounding the role of stents.
Thought For The Day!!