Capital Regional Medical Center hosted their third annual HerHeart Symposium at their conference center Saturday, Feb. 7. The symposium aimed to inform women about heart disease and encourage women to be proactive about their health.
CRMC’s marketing manager, Luke Thomas, explained the importance of having a heart disease seminar for the community.
“We started HerHeart specifically to focus on the statistic that heart disease is the number one killer of women,” Thomas said. “We link the community and attach the statistics that we talk about to the local resources that are available.”
Interventional cardiologists Dr. Carey Dellock and Dr. Niraj Pandit led the symposium. Dellock stressed the importance of being informed, especially for young women.
“Young women need to be aware of what their family history is and also need to be aware that heart disease doesn’t just affect older women,” Dellock said. “Women can be born with congenital heart disease as well as heart rhythm issues that can affect young women.”
Dellock explained that women tend to ignore the warning signs because they don’t want to appear “foolish” but insisted that women take heed to the warning signs and pay attention to their bodies.
She stressed that there is no quick fix for heart disease and that prevention is key.
“Don’t smoke, that is probably the number one most important thing for your health, keep a healthy weight and exercise. For every hour you exercise you add two whole hours to your life,” Dellock said.
The symposium offered a heart healthy breakfast and blood pressure screenings for attendees and attracted many women eager to remain heart healthy.
Mary Desilets heard about the seminar from her physician and decided to attend out of curiosity.
“It was very informative and some of it kind of scared me. I need to make significant changes,” Desilets said. “I’m in the process of being evaluated now and I have a huge family history of heart issues so it’s definitely worth paying attention to.”
If you have any questions or want to learn more about heart disease and how to prevent it, visit http://capitalregionalmedicalcenter.com/our-services/heart/herheart.dot