By Lynne Perry-Bottinger, M.D., F.A.C.C.

More than 79 million Americans have one or more forms of cardiovascular disease. And nearly 16 million people living today have experienced a heart attack, angina pectoris, or both*.

You may be caring for someone affected by heart disease which includes coronary artery disease, arrhythmia, and peripheral artery disease; you may have one of these conditions yourself; or you may know a friend or family member with one of these conditions.

Risks of Heart Disease

Risk factors for heart disease include diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, a lack of physical activity, and smoking. As a caregiver, it’s important to talk with your loved one’s doctor to understand the prescribed treatment plan, including any medications for treating diabetes, high blood pressure, and/or cholesterol levels. It’s also essential to learn about ways to manage the care of a loved one through doctor-approved, healthy lifestyle changes.

Note too that as the caregiver, you should take care of yourself as well, because caring for a spouse can increase your risk of developing and dying from heart disease.

Steps to Reducing Heart Disease Risk Factors

If anyone in your home is a smoker, it’s time for them (or you) to quit. Exposure to second-hand smoke is not only unhealthy for the person with heart disease, but also increases the risk of developing heart disease by 25-30% among other household members. You can contact your doctor’s office for help to stop smoking; there are also a number of support groups and alternative medicine therapies, such as hypnosis and acupuncture that can help.

Likewise, there are a variety of over-the-counter and prescription smoking cessation products that reduce nicotine cravings. However, if anyone in your household must smoke—whether cigarettes, cigars, or pipes—ask the person to go outdoors and do so away from other people. Any heart patient who smokes should realize smoking may unfortunately cause the fresh new bypass grafts to close.

If your loved one has had heart surgery, talk with your doctor about how you can prepare yourself and your home for your loved one’s return from the hospital. 

• Add a safety bar in the bath tub and near the toilet
• Set-up a first-floor sleeping area, if stair-climbing is not possible
• Prepare a journal to track medications, their doses and administration times
• Learn how to care for the patient’s incision

• Know signs and symptoms that require a doctor’s immediate attention

• Get trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)

Also, be sure to speak to your doctor about enrolling the patient in a cardiac rehabilitation program. 

Encourage Physical Activity

Talk to your loved one’s doctor about how to safely build physical activity into his or her daily routine. In preparing an exercise program, the doctor will consider the individual’s level of fitness prior to diagnosis, current medications, and whether or not surgery or angioplasty has been performed.     

Plan a Heart-Healthy Diet

A heart healthy diet is an important aspect of managing your loved one’s condition. His/her doctor or a nutritionist can prepare a good tasting, nutritious food plan for you to follow. Also talk to your loved one’s health team about portion size for foods. Generally portions can be measured as a “handful” for most things and half of a handful for the most fattening foods, like meat—no more than 1 ounce a day for you quantitative types. 

Here are some dietary tips to talk about with the doctor:   

• Read labelscarefully and choose those with zero trans fats
• Select foodswith low sodium—less than 2.4 mg—one gram of saturated fat, and no grams of cholesterol per serving size. Your total daily sodium should be 2 grams.
• Eat more foodscontaining whole grains—at least 2 grams of fiber
• Buy no-fat or low-fat dairy products.
• Prepare more fish (wild Alaskan salmon is great), use leaner cuts of meat and look for non-meat, alternative protein sources like beans, tofu, egg whites, and non-fat milk/yogurt
• Serve more fruits and vegetables
• Cut back on sugar in food and beverages—no more than 15 grams of carbohydrates per serving size, and less for diabetics
• Eat more almonds and oatmeal to keep cholesterol low
• Discuss with your doctor about taking Omega 3 and vitamins
• Avoid salty foods
• Limit alcohol to one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men, at most (note alcohol and caffeine in moderate doses can be antioxidants and helpful in preventing heart disease)

Get a Good Night’s Rest

Everyone should aim for at least 8 hours of sleep every night. But often it’s not easy for either the caregiver or the heart patient to return to a normal sleeping pattern. Fear, medications, a change of environment, and new daily routines can all conspire to disrupt sleep. But sleep is essential to healing and there are things that you can do to help your loved one get a good night’s rest.  

Here are some tips for getting sleep:

• Establish a new bedtime routine. Try to go to bed at the same time each night.
• Avoid alcohol and caffeine within 6 hours of bedtime
• Reserve potentially stressful conversations about family, finances or friends for another time, not the evening  
• Read instead of watching television or play relaxing music. 
• Ask the doctor about pain medication if pain is keeping your loved one awake

Throw Away Guilt

As the caregiver, it’s important that you recognize that you’re not to blame for your loved one’s condition. So don’t dwell on those times when you served cheeseburgers or luscious, creamy deserts. Rather, take one day at a time and resolve to create a heart healthy environment where he/she is comfortable and thrives.   

Source: *American Heart Association