Health Tip of the Month

Take Good Care of Your Mouth

 

Not practicing proper oral health, can lead to serious problems in other parts of your body. Any infection in your mouth can potentially be passed into your bloodstream and then to other areas in your body. Persons with heart disease are especially at risk. Be sure to brush your teeth and gums at least twice per day, and floss at least once per day as a basic rule. Visit the dentist at least twice per year for a check up. Treat problems in your mouth with the same urgency that you would give to other parts of your body.

Myarka Fostine
RN, BSN
The Valley Hospital
Atrial Fibrillation
What is Atrial Fibrillation?

The human heart has two upper chambers called atria and two lower chambers called ventricles. During normal heart activity, the upper chambers contract to send blood to the lower chambers, which in turn sends blood to the heart and the body. For a contraction to occur the natural pacemaker of the heart, called the sinoatrial node, has to send electrical impulses through nodes that exist between the atria and the ventricles producing each heartbeat. When the node between the atria and the ventricles receive too many impulses than it is able to conduct, they atrial fibrillate and irregular contractions of the ventricles occur causing the heart to contract very fast rate and irregularly. In Atrial fibrillation, the heart’s upper chambers are not synchronized with the heart’s lower chambers. The heart quivers with each heart beat causing poor blood flow to the body.

Causes of Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial Fibrillation can be caused by underlying diseases such as coronary artery disease where there is lack of blood flow to the heart through the artery due to plaque build up, high blood pressure, heart failure (where the heart pump is not able to distribute blood to the rest of the body effectively), and abnormal heart valves. Other factors that can cause atrial fibrillation are alcohol intoxication, caffeine use, and electrolyte imbalance including low potassium or low magnesium.

Signs and symptoms of Atrial Fibrillation

People with atrial fibrillation sometimes experience palpitations, chest pain, low blood pressure, lightheadedness, weakness, and confusion.

Treatment of Atrial Fibrillation

The goal of treatment is to convert the heart quiver from atrial fibrillation to a normal rhythm or to control the rapid heart beat. The goal is to bring the hear beat to less than 100 beats per minute. Atrial fibrillation can be treated with medications such as cardizem, amiodarone, digoxin, metoprolol and multaq.

Other treatments

Cardioversion – A shock is given to the heart to restore normal heart rhythm. This is usually done in a hospital setting in other to monitor the patient’s status.

Pacemaker – A small device is inserted under the skin of the chest to control irregular heartbeats. It replaces the heart node in initiating electrical impulses.

Cardiac ablation – It is done by scarring or removing any of the heart’s abnormal tissue that causes abnormal heart rhythm.

Complication of Atrial Fibrillation

For some people atrial fibrillation becomes a chronic problem. The main complication of atrial fibrillation is the formation of blood clots. Because of the quivering of the heart during atrial fibrillation, there is blood remaining in the ventricles unable to get its way to the body. Anytime there is stasis of blood in the body, there is risk for clot formation. Clots make their way back to the general circulation, which in turn may cause stroke. People who have chronic atrial fibrillation require blood thinner medication to prevent clot formation. Blood thinner medication includes coumadin, pradaxa, or xarelto. Some people are not good candidates for blood thinner due to either history of stomach bleeding or other problems.

LARIAT is a fairly new procedure to reduce stroke risk in patients who are not able to take blood thinners. The left atrial appendage is a small pouch connected to the left atria of the heart. This pouch contributes to blood clot formation most of the time in atrial fibrillation. The goal of Lariat procedure is to tie off the left atrial appendage thus, reducing risk of stroke in patients with atrial Fibrillation.

Finance Tip of the Month

Start Planning for Your Child’s College Education Early

 

Everyone well knows that going to college is among the biggest investments that many of us will make in our futures. College tuition rates continue to rise each year, and more and more people are graduating from college with large loans to pay back starting six months after graduating. If you are a parent with young children, you need to start planning how you are going to help your children pay for college from now. There are basically four ways to pay for college: scholarships, grants, work study and loans. A simple strategy involves tapping the resources of the first three options early before even considering loans. Do your diligence! There is money out there for your utilization. Find out where your kids want to go early, the costs, your available financing options and the requirements to be able to tap those resources. Remember, the early bird catches the worm…

Ken Fifi Amoah
Tax Consultant
Ernst & Young
Building a Great Financial Future
All too soon, after enjoying the Christmas festivities with friends and love ones, we have entered into a new year. Every New Year begins with resolutions and dissolutions. We resolve to stop bad habits, eat healthily, save more and be more religious. Others decide to end bad relationships, quit their jobs to begin their own businesses or even tie the long awaited knot. Sad but has to be said, the year ends quickly and we come to realize that we could not achieve any of our resolutions or dissolutions. Some of these disturbing failures eventually end up in building a poor financial future.

Building a great financial future does not happen in a day. Little drops of water make a mighty ocean they say. However, it takes a while for all these little drops to accumulate to make the ocean mighty. From childhood till date, we have heard multiple times from our parents to save, spend less, buy only needed items and avoid unnecessary credit in any instance. We grew up to get introduced to ways of safeguarding our current and future assets by having insurance of all kinds. To add to that, we also learned about investments, we heard about mutual funds, fixed interest deposit and investing on the stock exchange. These are all great methods of building a great financial future, however in this article; I will introduce unorthodox methods of establishing a great financial future.

Firstly, the law of cause and effect says that nothing happens in life without a reason. This is expressed in the law of motion that, to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. A less regarded form of building wealth is social investments, which is giving to charity and helping the poor. As a principle of sowing and reaping which cuts across all religions, your future is guaranteed of a bountiful harvest of wealth if this principle is obeyed. In light if this, one of your resolutions this year should be to give generously to help the underprivileged and misfortune; this is a kind of savings, insurance and investment as well.

Secondly, establishing good will is less regarded method of creating wealth for the future. Recently, a friend told me of a business he began by buying goods on credit from a supplier with no money down but just his father’s good will. The lives we live will create trust or disloyalty which affects our children or generation. Good will can provide you with free health care or even constant flow of gifts in the future only if we live our present lives in integrity.

Finally, for the singles or unmarried, getting married to the right person with lots of mutual interests can lead to building a great financial future. The right spouse will support your dreams, shape them, and help implement them, encourage you in times of distress and support you when all is lost. This would culminate into a good family and with children born into this environment; the values will cause them to turn out well which eventually leads them to good careers.

As a final word of advice, use these unorthodox principles of building wealth in addition to those already known to build a great financial future.

1 Comment

  1. stiadmin says:

    I love your tumblers and love what you did with the back,you are much more conindeft than I! I did do a different strip of multi colors on my grandsons playmat and I love it. Just need to think more creative I guess.I am so glad your friend is ok. Blood clots are scary things. He is so lucky to have you watching over him. Just make sure to take time for yourself to rest. Caretakers sometimes forget they need care too!!!! OMG and you sing too! Multitalented or what! heheBlessings to you and your friend!

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