Disease | the-human-body

Takotsubo

Have you ever heard the term "To scare someone to death," or "A broken heart?" Well, believe it or not, this is possible. The scientific term for stress endused heart attack is takosubo. This disease is set off by an abrupt physically or emotionally stressful event. When an event like this occurs, the arenal gland release adreneline with such speed, which causes the heart to dialate and stop pumping.

Signs and Symptoms

A few signs or symptoms that may show that you have Takotsubo are much like heart attack symptoms. These include:

chest pain
shortness of breath
pain in sholder or back

Treatement

First, to find this diesease, an echocardiogram is performed, measuring the beating of the heart. Hospital rest is administered with a possibility of taking a few blood clotting medications. With rest and carefull watch of the heart, thhis disease will be quickly resolved and taken care of.

Risk Factors

Takotsubo has increased in people quite drastically in the past 10 years. The reason this may be is because it has only been recently discovered. People most affected, however, include women over 50 for reasons not yet identified. From 2000, with only one published paper, the number increased to over 310 in 10 years. No exact statistics have been made though, because this disease is still being learned about. The actual risk factors that are seen in cardiomyopathies, for example, smoking, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure, do not pertain to this disease because it is not a blockage of an artery.

Prevention

Because this is caused by emotional or stressful events, it is not preventable, but however, patients who experience this episode likely do not experience it again. Fortunately, these episodes are not life threatening, but there is still a slight possibility that this could be a fatal event. Usually, no damage is even done to the heart with one of these outbursts.