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Wednesday, August 08, 2007

broken heart syndrome

Image taken from here

I attended case presentation by the registrar this morning. The meeting start at 8 am and free breakfast was provided. This is a weekly case presentation.

One of the cases that were presented was broken heart syndrome. The name is interesting and the clinical presentation fits the description.

This describes a situation when a person had a sudden onset of chest pain and it mimic severe heart attack [again, why do we always call severe heart attack instead of small heart attack or heart attack :) ].The investigation of the coronary arteries (this is the blood vessel of the heart) will be normal whereas in a heart attack, coronary arteries sometimes can be blocked. The left ventricle sometimes can be seen as bulging due differences in muscle contraction in ventricle.

Diagram of the heart. From Yahoo health

How this syndrome happens? This usually happen in elderly women who had severe emotional stress such as the loss of a loved one or receiving bad news.

How this is related to my neurology rotation? Apparently, stroke can cause broken heart syndrome too. Another name for this disease is Takotsubo. It means octopus trap in Japanese.

This disease does not usually leave permanent damage to the heart and usually patient can recover within few days. Although there is no physical damage to the heart, the person will be suffering from emotional damage. Now, how do you mend a broken heart?

7 comments:

SoFie NuR said...

yeah..that's right..banyak perkara akan berlaku ke atas diri kita due to stress...i hope i won't get any heart prob..AMIN..

Minci said...

cool.. if anybody do know how to mend a broken heart.. then please do work that magic on me.. huhu

Hafiz said...

sofie: amin,

minci: it will be difficult to mend a broken heart....

Anonymous said...

hehe... me want also?

Anonymous said...

interesting..
seriously, i tak pernah belajar pun syndrome ni...

aria ayumi said...

adehh tingat ms pom 5, blaja bio pasal jantung. siyes kite xbleh dengar ape yg cekgu cakap! tetibe ase fenin2. jantung kan berkait ngan darah. huhu. tu yg 'mabuk' sket.

Hafiz said...

kasyah: do you mean the treatment of broken heart? Probably this will involve intensive psyhological therapy :)

chem: i think this is a rare disease but quite unique in that this disease mimics a heart attack in elderly people.

aria: mabuk dengan darah ker ni?