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March 04, 2018
Carey Taylor and her son, Noah, were planning the trip of a lifetime to Greece. It almost didn’t happen. “There wasn’t a lot of hope surrounding her situation,” Noah recalled, referring to his mother’s heart condition: hypertropic cardiomyopathy. This condition causes the walls of the heart to thicken. For Carey,…
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February 26, 2018
People living with Peripheral Artery Disease, or PAD, a condition where blood flow to legs is poor because arteries are narrow or blocked, now have another option for reducing pain and improving quality of life: a supervised exercise program. The program — now covered by Medicare, Medicaid and most insurance plans…
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February 15, 2018
Olympics fans know him as the Flying Tomato, a snowboarder who defies gravity on the halfpipe and looks rather dapper draped in gold medals, but as a child Shaun White was a medical challenge. Born with a heart condition called Tetralogy of Fallot, which comprises four congenital heart defects, White…
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February 14, 2018
With the number of flu-related deaths on the rise in the U.S. and here in Connecticut, Hartford Hospital doctors have had to use heart-lung machine this winter to save the lives of patients who experience respiratory failure because of the virus. ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygentation) is a bypass device that…
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February 07, 2018
Editor’s note: Amanda Zaleski, an exercise physiologist with the Hartford HealthCare Heart & Vascular Institute’s Department of Preventive Cardiology, led an early morning “Walk and Talk” at Westfarms mall Feb. 2 to celebrate National Heart Month. Walkers learned about the new blood pressure guidelines, watched a CPR demonstration and received…
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January 28, 2018
It’s the little moments that have the biggest impact. “You know, all the holidays, all the birthdays – they weren’t as important as the little things every day,” said Leigh Pechillo. It was Mother’s Day 2014, and Leigh was enjoying a day of pampering that featured a song written just…
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January 26, 2018
Did you know that your heart beats more than 100,000 times each and every day? And that some hearts are predisposed to leaking valves? But newer studies show that with the right surgeon, a surgeon with tremendous experience, repairing the valve – in this case specifically the mitral valve – might be better for some…
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January 16, 2018
With a nationwide shortage of intravenous bags, clinical pharmacies across Hartford Healthcare are working to ensure patient care isn’t interrupted. The Wall Street Journal reported that the shortage began in September after a group of IV bag manufacturing plants in Puerto Rico lost power because of Hurricane Maria. The shortage…
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November 15, 2017
Sex doesn’t kill, according to what appears to be the first study to evaluate sexual activity as a trigger for sudden cardiac arrest. Researchers reviewing data on 4,557 adult deaths caused by sudden cardiac arrest between 2002 and 2015 in Portland, Ore., found only 34 involved sex. The report was…