INVC,,
Delhi,,
The best gift you can give your sister on Rakhi is a health check or a blood donation coupon, recommends Padma Shri and Dr B C Roy National Awardee Dr KK Aggarwal, President Heart Care Foundation of India. Most diseases remain silent for years or decades. Blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol may remain silent for over two decades.
Doctors recommend an annual physical checkup after the age of 30 for Indians as against 40 in Americans. If there is a family history, the checkup may be done earlier, starting at age 20 and if normal, every three years till the age of 30 when one should have annual checkups.
Women need special tests such as breast mammogram, ultrasound of the pelvis, bone and fat densitometry, cervical cancer checkups and special antenatal checkups if they are pregnant.
If detected early in time, both cancer of the breast and cancer of the cervix are curable.
Osteoporosis is another condition rampant in women and needs a regular checkup. The disease may remain silent till a fracture occurs. In India, heart disease amongst women is also rising. Collectively more women die of heart attack than all types of cancers combined together. Most corporate hospitals today either give a coupon or issue an advance receipt, which can be utilized by the sister for a checkup.
Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of death among women. Between the ages of 45 to 64, one in nine women develop symptoms of some form of cardiovascular disease. After age 65, the ratio climbs to one in three women, said Dr. Aggarwal. The best gift one can give to a middle-aged sister is to have her get a cardiac checkup done using a stress echocardiography.
Diagnosing coronary heart disease in the woman who presents with chest pain can be a difficult problem. Coronary angiography is considered the “gold standard” for diagnosis but is an invasive and costly test. The initial evaluation of patients presenting with chest pain and suspected heart disease often includes some form of stress testing. Ordinary stress treadmill test in the women maybe unreliable. The best answer is to get a stress exercise echocardiography done. The sensitivity and specificity of stress echocardiography is high.
