On the occasion of a free heart failure screening day, the Poitiers University Hospital opened its doors. Enough to raise awareness about a disease that is still too little known and causes more than 70,000 deaths per year.
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“I saw myself leaving, but not coming back, because I was in a sorry state.“Last April, Philippe Marchand did not believe he would recover from his heart attack. The retiree has heart failure. An increasingly common fatal illness which mainly concerns the elderly, but not only. Fearing an epidemic, the Hospital Center university (CHU) of Poitiers sets up a screening day every year But this year, on November 14, it is part of a national campaign.
Since his heart attack, Philippe Marchand has not been the same. “I didn’t stop, I’m someone always plugged into 100,000 volts. I was told to calm down and then well, there it was, at one point or another it had to give up“, he laments. Now, the retiree lives with a subcutaneous defibrillator for “take over in the event of a problem, until help arrives” and is undergoing treatment. He also changed his diet, stopped smoking and exercised. “Doctors are not gods. Either we follow what they tell us, or we know what awaits us.he continues. The journey will be long, but the ball is in my court today.“
A certain family heredity, poor lifestyle and lack of medical follow-up, Philippe Marchand was accumulating bad signals. A trend that the Poitiers University Hospital wishes to stem, as part of the heart failure screening day. More than free screenings, the day is especially designed to raise awareness of the disease. “Heart failure is a motor problemexplains Doctor Benoit Lequeux, cardiologist. The pump in the heart does not work for various reasons. And therefore the blood does not reach different organs and we can have many complications linked to this..”
The warning signs of heart failure are known by the acronym Epof: shortness of breath, weight gain, edema and fatigue.
Benoit Lequeuxcardiologist at Poitiers University Hospital
Heart failure is, each year, responsible for more than 70,000 deaths in France and affects 2.3% of the population and more than 10% among those over 70, according to data from Public Health France. “This mostly comes with age. The age of the population is increasing so, in fact, there are more and more of them. We expect an epidemic, hence the interest in early detection to put treatments in place“, explains Benoît Lequeux. In a few minutes, thanks to a small blood test, patients know whether or not they are suffering from heart failure.
Screening tests for heart failure are carried out in just a few minutes using these machines.
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© Léa Sombret – France Télévisions
A success for this day when the University Hospital received a lot of people and nearly 28% of positive cases. Among the people diagnosed: people who had the symptoms and did not consult them soon enough, but also others who did not have them. “What we are trying to convey to the general public is that we must go for screening as soon as we observe simple signs: shortness of breath, weight gain, edema and fatigue. These are the beginnings of heart failure. It is absolutely necessary to consult if these symptoms appear“, insists the cardiologist, Benoît Lequeux.
