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.

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    What You Need to Know about Diabetes
    Anonym
    / Categories: WELLNESS, 2021

    What You Need to Know about Diabetes

    November is American Diabetes Month. It’s an important observation because 29 million Americans have diabetes. One in every 11 people—which likely relates to many, many people you know—are living with the disease. You, yourself, may have diabetes or prediabetes, a reversible form of the disease, without even knowing it.

    When left unchecked, diabetes can cause seriously debilitating complications—like nerve, kidney, eye, skin, and foot damage—over time. It can even cause heart and lung disease and Alzheimer’s. That’s why understanding the basics of diabetes and getting tested are an important part of everybody’s health routine.

    Here are the basics:
    Insulin is a hormone your body uses to get sugars from the foods you eat from your bloodstream to the cells of the body that need them. Each of the three major types of diabetes relates to trouble producing or using insulin.

    Type 1, which affects only 5 percent of all people with diabetes, is usually diagnosed in children or young adults. It’s a condition where the body doesn’t produce any or enough insulin.

    Gestational diabetes comes on during and ends after pregnancy. Recognizing it and following your provider’s advice is important for the health of the mother and child. Also, gestational diabetes is a risk factor for developing the most common type of diabetes, Type 2, later in life.

    Type 2 diabetes is when your body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin. With early detection and careful management, you can avoid or delay the complications related to diabetes and live a long and healthy life.

    Here’s what to do:

    • Know your risk. Family history, high blood pressure, age, race, physical activity, and body mass index (which is determined by your height and weight) can relate to greater risk. Take the test at diabetes.org/are-you-at-risk for your personal risk assessment.
    • Regardless of your risk, be sure to have a standard blood test at your primary care provider’s office yearly, and ask your provider for a reading of your results. Based on the results, you could be referred to a program that helps people prevent Type 2 diabetes or to a diabetes educator.
    • Between tests, look for the following signs and symptoms: urinating often; feeling very thirsty or very hungry, even when you are eating and drinking normally; fatigue; blurry vision; and tingling, pain, or numbness in your hands and feet.  If you have one or more of these symptoms, make an appointment with your primary care provider.

    If you are diagnosed with diabetes, it’s important to act right away. The sooner you get the information you need and learn to incorporate healthy changes the more likely you are to avoid or delay serious complications.

    • Get connected. Diabetes is very complex, and there is a lot to learn. Luckily, there are specialized teachers, called diabetes educators, working in our community. Their sole purpose is to help you understand the disease process, to uncover the barriers to wellness, and find a personalized approach for managing your diabetes. Just ask your primary care provider to connect you with a diabetes educator.
    • Focus on creating an environment and relationships that support your goal to live a healthy and productive life. Your supportive friends and family, your diabetes educator, and diabetes support groups can help break down barriers and cheer you on.
    • Believe in yourself. Making the types of changes needed to manage diabetes is challenging. The most important thing to know is this: you can do it. Start small, and you’ll soon see that small changes add up over time.

    The changes that you need to make to prevent or manage diabetes will improve every aspect of your health and limit your risks of many other major diseases, like heart disease and cancer. Best of all, you will be living in a way that improves your overall experience and creating a positive example for everyone you encounter. 

    Jill Robart, RN, BSN, CDE,  is a diabetes educator working in primary care practices throughout the region. She helps approximately 250  patients annually to decrease the negative effects of diabetes.

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