Tatom

When we think of hearts in February, most of us likely picture Valentine’s Day cards and heart-shaped sweets. But ever since Lyndon Johnson proclaimed it “American Heart Month” in 1964, February has also been a great time to check in on the health of your actual heart.

Residents of Bend and the surrounding ambulance service area are fortunate to have world-class cardiac care. If you experience chest pressure, shortness of breath, or sudden fatigue, a call to Deschutes County 911 will summon a battery of highly trained paramedics and EMTs from Bend Fire & Rescue. If a 12-lead electrocardiogram shows a STEMI (a type of heart attack), they’ll whisk you to St. Charles Medical Center, where a team of expert physicians and nurses stand ready as soon as you arrive to the cardiac catheterization lab. And if the attack progresses to a full-blown cardiac arrest, Bend Fire has among the highest resuscitation rates in the country.

Building upon its success as a high-performing EMS agency, last month Bend Fire hosted a meeting of local stakeholders to work toward earning recognition for Bend as a “HeartSafe Community.” I had the privilege of attending this meeting along with my colleagues at Bend-La Pine Schools, where I work as a registered nurse. Other stakeholders included St. Charles, Deschutes County 911, and Mary Taft, whose advocacy as the mother of a cardiac arrest survivor is proof positive that an individual can make a profound difference in their community.

Bend-La Pine Schools plays an important role in our regional cardiac emergency safety net by training staff on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and by providing public access to Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs). While state law requires an AED in every public building, the district’s secondary schools have multiple AEDs. And last year Bend-La Pine invested more than $70,000 in portable AEDs for the safety of our athletes, coaches, and spectators at school sports events. But the HeartSafe meeting revealed we have work yet to do, like ensuring the locations of our fixed AEDs are all available in Bend Fire’s AED registry.

Of course, these efforts are all considered tertiary prevention, which means preventing a heart attack or cardiac arrest from leading to permanent disability or death. Tertiary care is important and lifesaving but is also reactive and enormously expensive. If we’re serious about combatting heart disease, which remains the leading cause of death in the United States, then we must also be proactive and go upstream to stop the disease process before it starts.

Heart attacks occur when a blood clot blocks an artery feeding the heart, depriving it of oxygen and sugar. These clots are the result of two main factors. One, increased blood pressure leads to small injuries inside the artery wall, and blood clots form in the process of repairing these injuries. And two, high levels of blood cholesterol lead to plaques building up on the artery walls over many years, beginning in childhood. Increased blood pressure can cause plaques to break loose and occlude an artery, and the build-up of plaques and hardening of arteries can increase blood pressure.

The key to both healthy blood pressure and healthy levels of blood cholesterol is simple, but not necessarily easy: Reduce behaviors that harm your heart, like smoking nicotine, drinking alcohol and eating ultra-processed foods, and increase behaviors that strengthen your heart, like physical activity. These behavior changes can reverse high blood pressure and high cholesterol, but many people benefit from daily medication, as well. All of this begins, of course, with a visit to your primary care provider.

If you want to learn more about protecting your heart, Bend Park & Recreation offers several learning opportunities as part of its Heart Health Week, February 10-14. Learn more at bendparksandrec.org/hearthealth.

For CPR and AED training, visit Bend Fire & Rescue’s HeartSafe page at tinyurl.com/Bendhearts.

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