On December 12, 10 major healthcare establishments in France will take part in National Atrial Fibrillation Day. A disease that is often asymptomatic and is a major risk factor for stroke. Objective of this day: inform patients and develop screening.
It would affect around 600,000 people in France and many are unaware that they suffer from it. However, atrial or atrial fibrillation is a heart rhythm disorder that should not be overlooked since it is a risk factor for stroke.
Its detection is however simple: taking a pulse on the carotids allows in a few seconds to say if the heartbeat is regular or not. An easy to spot warning sign for patients. “We are involved as practicing cardiologists in the daily management of patients suffering from atrial fibrillation and we can say that there is an urgent need for earlier detection since one in two patients is asymptomatic, explains Professor Ariel Cohen to Saint-Antoine hospital in Paris. In half or two-thirds of cases, when a patient has had a stroke, there is atrial fibrillation”.
Encourage testing
The objective of National Atrial Fibrillation Day is therefore to inform and encourage screening for this disease, but also to advance research. “We are trying to characterize the arterial thromboembolic risk and the hemorrhagic risk through the characterization of the clinical, biological, ultrasound and morphological profile and we are working on this notion which is that upstream of atrial fibrillation, there would be a dysfunction that is called atrial cardiomyopathy and that we can hope in the near future to interfere with this dysfunction to prevent atrial fibrillation and a fortiori its complications”, adds Ariel Cohen.
Diagnosis that can be done remotely
“Lots of means have been developed, in particular connected devices that allow remote diagnosis of atrial fibrillation. Everyone must remember that the cardiovascular risk being the same for asymptomatic fibrillation, there is a justification and a need to detect this disorder even when the patient does not feel it”, insists Ariel Cohen.
The National Day on December 12 will take place in 10 hospitals in France where patients can go to get information, education and get tested:
– University Hospital of Lille
– University Hospital of Caen-Normandy
– University Hospital of Clermont-Ferrand
– University Hospital of Pau
– University Hospital of Toulouse
– CH of Antibes-Juan-Les-Pins
– North-St Denis Cardiological Center
– Grand Hospital of the East Francilien in Jossigny
– Pité-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris
– St Antoine Hospital in Paris
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-1739366311.jpg "Ellie Bloom: “Seeing the size of the hole in my heart, the cardiologist told me that I had a guardian angel”")
