Seasonal Talk –Cardiovascular Diseases & Rheumatism
18 April 2015
Cardiovascular Diseases & Rheumatism Talk was taken part in the Auditorium of Christian Family Service Centre in Kwun Tong on 18 April 2015. The talk aimed to enhance people’s understanding of the relationship between cardiovascular diseases and rheumatism. There were 160 participants in total.
The talk was started by Dr. CHAN Tak-hin, a specialist in Rheumatology, to introduce the risk of having cardiovascular diseases. In general, rheumatic patients were at higher risk of having cardiovascular diseases due to the affection of medications and the illness especially systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA) and Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). Dr. CHAN explained the relationship between cardiovascular diseases and rheumatism. He stated that taking steroid and Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug (NSAID) would also increase the risk. So, participants should maintain a healthy lifestyle by controlling well the body weight, blood pressure, blood glucose level and blood cholesterol level. If inflammation was under control, the risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases would be reduced.
Apart from this, the talk was continued by Dr. CHAN Chi-kin, a specialist in Cardiology, to introduce the common types of cardiovascular diseases and atherosclerosis. He also explained the advantages and limitations of different checking methods for disease diagnosis including Electrocardiogram, Doppler Echocardiogram, CT Coronary Angiogram, Cardiac MRI and Cardiac Catheterization. Several videos were shown to illustrate the difference before and after the surgery. Angioplasty and Coronary artery bypass surgery are common surgeries that helped to restore normal blood flow to avoid the heart failure. Lastly, Dr. CHAN claimed that some cardiovascular diseases did not have obvious symptoms. He urged participants to do body check regularly and seek help from medical personnel if one had any doubts.
The talk then followed by a Q&A session where participants actively asked questions. Both Dr. CHAN answered with patience to solve their doubts. The audiences found the information from the talk useful and showed great interested in similar topic.
