Cardiovascular Screenings, Prevention and Diagnostics
Heart screenings, prevention tools and diagnostic tests are all services offered by our cardiology specialists to help understand a patient’s heart condition or risk of heart disease, as well as what prevention or treatment options should be used.
Who Should Have a Heart Screening?
Heart and vascular disease can take many forms and present a variety of symptoms. Often these symptoms are very subtle, and successful treatment begins with a thorough understanding of the patient’s history and risk factors.
Most screenings can start as early as 20 years old and the frequency will vary depending on your medical history. Contributing factors for more frequent screenings include:
- Sex
- Age
- Family history of heart disease
- Race
- Obesity
- Being a smoker
- Poor diet
- Stress
Types of Heart Screenings
Noninvasive diagnostic techniques provide our cardiovascular experts with fast, accurate visualization and analysis of the heart and surrounding structures, and are typically safe and painless for patients who are at risk for heart disease. Some of these advanced imaging technologies include:
- CT Calcium Scoring scan
- Coronary Artery CT Angiography
- HeartFlow®
- Angioscreen vascular screening
- Electrocardiograms
- Echocardiograms
- Electrophysiology study
- Cardiac stress tests
- Holter monitoring
- Nuclear stress tests
Treatment Options
Hackensack Meridian Health also offers patients throughout the region access to comprehensive Cardiac Catheterization Labs where interventional medical procedures are performed by our experienced team of interventional cardiologists, registered nurses, and cardiovascular technologists to diagnose and treat heart conditions, including:
- Aortic aneurysm: a bulge in the aorta, the main artery that carries blood from your heart through the chest and torso.
- Coronary artery disease: clogging of the arteries by fatty materials in the bloodstream.
- Valvular heart disease: malfunction of one or more of the heart valves that can affect blood flow within the heart.
- Congestive heart failure: a condition where the heart muscle has become too weak to pump efficiently.
- Certain congenital heart conditions: defects in one or more heart structures that are present from birth.
The interventional cardiology team can also perform treatment procedures to help open a blocked artery. Some of those treatments include:
- Stents
- Embolic Protection
- Percutaneous Valve Repair
- Balloon Valvuloplasty
- Atherectomy
- Thrombectomy
- Angioplasty/Percutaneous Coronary Intervention
- Electrophysiology Ablations
- WATCHMAN™ Left Atrial Appendage Closure: a proven alternative to long-term warfarin therapy for stroke risk reduction in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation
- Medtronic Micra® Transcatheter Pacing System (TPS): the world’s smallest, minimally invasive cardiac pacemaker that treats patients with bradycardia, a common heart condition characterized by a slow or irregular heart rhythm
- Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) Procedure: minimally invasive procedure for patients with critical aortic stenosis (AS)
What's Your Risk Level for Heart Disease?
The Framingham risk score (FRS) is a tool for the assessment of risk level of Coronary Artery Disease over 10 years. The FRS considers six coronary risk factors, including age, gender, total cholesterol (TC), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL), smoking habits, and systolic blood pressure. Click here to identify your risk score using this tool. Review your results with your doctor.
Convenient Access to Expert Heart Care
Hackensack Meridian Health offers patients access to innovative surgical procedures at these two major academic medical centers, as well as highly coordinated treatment and cardiac rehabilitation services through our integrated network of hospitals located close to home.
