Secondary prevention in coronary disease : guide-lines for multidisciplinary health promotion program

Abstract

Recent projections show that in 2020, in developing countries, 77% of deaths will occur because of diseases like heart infarction, strokes, cancer, diabetes and hypertension. These are diseases treatable but incurable, with high costs and life long use of medicinal and high technology. Coronary heart disease has been an important focus for health promotion for three reasons. First, it is the most widespread cause of premature death at least in the developed world. Second, the risk for disease can be modified by personal actions related to diet, smoking, exercise levels (behavioural risk factors). Finally, there is strong causality related to the presence of more than one of these risk factors. The scope of this paper is to outline a proposal for a Secondary Prevention Program in Coronary Atherosclerosis Disease (for outpatients) , with the following objectives: 1. To create guidelines for implementation of a multidisciplinary program for secondary prevention of arterial coronary disease involving professionals patients and their families. 2. To control the risk factors for coronary disease. The target of this study will be the outpatient of the coronary ambulatory of the Institute Dante Pazzanese of Cardiology , in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This is a governmental research Institute that provides medical treatment (in cardiology) for an (expressive number) of the population in our country. The program will be developed with techniques of Health Promotion methods regarding the changes in life style (including eating habits, smoking, drinking and physical activity) to avoid risk factors for coronary disease. Much emphasis has been placed on early and mid-life programs for cardiovascular fitness, hypertension screening, etc. If it is logically to believe in intervention before troubles arise, Health Promotion practices could still be very effective to achieve these aims even if begun in later life when the events to be prevented are only a few years away. The relevance of this study will be to improve the potential benefits of reduction in morbimortality associated with atherosclerosis coronary disease, lowering the cost of new cardiac events and promoting health between patients and their families empowering them to make healthy life choices. The opportunity to reduce the major cause of sickness and death from heart disease is at hand. By focusing on prevention, we can have a major impact on people's health. This is especially true for heart disease because of the wealth of knowledge about how to help prevent them. In the long run, it makes sense that prevention costs less than expensive interventions.