SVMC cardiology

 

 

STRIVING TO IMPROVE YOUR LIFE ONE BEAT AT A TIME

You get one life and you get one heart. The board-certified cardiologists and associated practitioners at SVMC Cardiology are committed to helping you make the most of both.

Our patient-centered approach to care and personalized care plans maximize your quality of life while delivering the treatment you need when you need it.

Creating the appropriate treatment plan for your condition begins with a cardiac consultation. Your consultation is a chance for you to share your health history and current concerns with your cardiologist. All necessary exams and tests are conducted on-site by your cardiac care team. The results are shared and discussed directly with you so that you fully understand your condition, treatment options, associated risks, and potential lifestyle changes.

After a heart episode or surgery, there’s nothing our cardiac team and you want more than for you to just get back on your feet and live the life you want. That’s why we begin your rehabilitation program before you even leave the hospital. Through a combination of education and exercise, your personalized program will help you build strength and reduce your risk factors. Using the full range of cardio equipment in our Cardiac Rehab Center and under the watchful eye of our rehab team, you’ll improve your heart’s strength and capacity and get closer to resuming a full and active lifestyle. For more information about Cardiac Rehabilitation, click here.

In order to understand how well your heart is or isn’t functioning, an echocardiogram may be performed. This non-invasive procedure uses sound waves to produce images of your heart. Both of SVMC’s cardiologists are board certified in echocardiography and able to observe how your heart is pumping and identify any abnormalities in the heart muscle or valves. An echocardiogram allows our team to make the most informed and appropriate recommendations for the next steps in your care.

If a standard echocardiogram does not provide a clear image of your heart, your SVMC care team may recommend a transesophageal echocardiogram or TEE. Performed at the hospital, this procedure involves inserting a flexible tube containing a transducer down your throat and into your esophagus. From this closer vantage point, the transducer then uses sound waves to create more detailed images of your heart and allows for better diagnosis.

Before we treat your heart, we need understand how it’s performing. At SVMC we offer a number of non-invasive stress tests that can quickly and easily reveal a number of things including: how well your heart works during increasing levels of activity; how certain medications are impacting blood flow; the effectiveness of procedures done to improve heart performance; and more.

If you have risk factors for heart disease, calcium scoring may may help you learn more about whether you are actually at risk. The non-invasive test uses high-speed CT imaging technology to measure the hardening of the heart’s arteries, a leading indicator of heart disease and heart attacks. Visit the calcium scoring page for complete details. 

A pacemaker is one of the most effective ways to ensure a heart maintains a steady, healthy beat. The SVMC cardiac team is exceptionally skilled and experienced at both pacemaker implantation and monitoring. Considered a minor surgery, implantation takes place at the hospital with most patients returning to normal activity (and a more steadily beating heart) within a few days. Like all medical equipment, pacemakers need a little TLC every now and then. At SVMC our cardiac team can perform routine monitoring, both remotely and in the office, and reprogramming as needed.

One of the most common cardiac diagnostic tools, an EKG is a painless way to check for problems with the electrical activity of your heart. The EKG translates and records your heart’s electrical activity over a period of time and translates it into waves. Your SVMC care provider can use printouts of the waves to detect any patterns that might point to a specific condition and put together a treatment plan that meets your specific needs.

Should your SVMC cardiac care provider want to monitor your heart over a longer period of time than is practical for a standard EKG, you may be given a Holter or event monitor. Worn outside the body and completely painless, monitors are helpful in detecting abnormalities that only happen occasionally and can help your doctor link any abnormalities to specific activities or events in your day.

Carotid ultrasound
At SVMC our goal is to treat your health issues before they become problems. Using our sophisticated carotid ultrasound test, your cardiac care provider can detect blockages in your neck arteries that could lead to a stroke or indicate problems in other parts or your circulatory system.

Education
Because understanding what causes heart problems is essential to resolving them, we offer a variety of educational resources to patients and their families.  Workshops are offered on an ongoing basis throughout the Dartmouth-Hitchcock network, and condition-specific literature is available in our offices. 

SVMC Cardiac Rehab

SVMC Pulmonology

American Heart Association 

Go Red for Women 

American College of Cardiology 

140 Hospital Drive, Suite 211, Bennington, VT 05201
Phone: (802) 442-0800
Fax: (833) 343-1597

Hours:
Monday – Friday:  8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Directions: 
For directions to SVMC Cardiology, click here. 

Parking:
For appointments at SVMC Cardiology, park in parking area P3 or P5.

    related articles

    Speech and Language for Young Children
    Anonym
    / Categories: WELLNESS, 2022

    Speech and Language for Young Children

    As we wrap up Better Hearing and Speech Month, celebrated each May, I am eager to share some hearing and speech-development tips for young children from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. You can use them to help the young children (1 - 2 years old) in your life develop their hearing and speech skills.

    Talk to your child. Use a lot of different words, including “big” words. Your child’s capacity to learn and understand them is likely bigger than you think. If they don’t know what a word means, they will likely learn to ask before long. You can make talking to your child really fun by using stories, songs, nursery rhymes, and word-and-gesture games, like pat-a-cake. All have a role in helping your child learn and grow.

    Use gestures as you speak. Name, describe, and point to objects and people. Ask your child to point to and use words for these people and objects too.

    Develop your child’s awareness of sounds. Talk about the sounds you hear and help your child look in the directions of sounds. This is a great way to make conversation as you take a walk together. You can notice the sounds of engines, birds, sirens, and music from passing cars. You can also talk about animals and the sounds they make.

    Monitor their hearing and understanding. At ages 1 – 2, your child should be able to point to the body parts you name, follow 1-part directions (like “roll the ball”), understand simple questions (like “what’s that?” and “where are your shoes?”), listen to stories and songs, and point to the pictures in books when you name them.

    Look for speech development. Your young child should use many new words, including those with the letters p, b, m, h, and w. They may start to name pictures in books and ask questions (like “what’s that?” or “who’s that?”). Children who are reaching developmental milestones will begin to use two-word phrases at this age. They may say, “more apple” or “no bed.”

    If you notice your child is not talking or hearing in the ways you would expect, contact your pediatrician. Your pediatric provider can make a referral to a developmental educator or speech-language pathologist who will help identify your child’s needs and help you and your child address their challenges. For more information, visit www.asha.org.

    Rebecca Carey, MS, CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist at SVMC Outpatient Rehabilitation, part of Southwestern Vermont Medical Center and Southwestern Vermont Health Care in Bennington.

    Print
    12101
    Tags: speech therapy speech-language pathology

    Theme picker

    Theme picker

    MORE NEWS

    Theme picker

    VIEW ALL

    Our Services

    PARTNERSHIP IS POWERFUL MEDICINE

    A commitment to excellence and a patient-centered approach sets Southwestern Vermont Health Care apart.

     Cancer Care
     Orthopedics
     Emergency
     Maternity
     Primary Care
     ExpressCare
     Cardiology
     Rehab & Residential Care
    View All Services

    Theme picker

    Theme picker

    Theme picker

    VIEW ALL