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Cardiovascular

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Featured articles

View Cardiovascular Articles

Here you will find:

More than 500 articles especially written by colleagues to support your care of patients with the cardiovascular diseases commonly seen in primary care.

Articles on the diagnosis and treatment of patients with cardiovascular conditions such as:

…and more.

Simple and informative infographics which will answer questions such as “How do these drugs work?”, “What causes this heart condition?” and much more.

Making sense of myocardial perfusion scans (MPS)

More and more of our cardiac patients are having scans to check what is going on in their hearts. There were about 1,200 single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scans per million population in the UK in 2000, according to the British Nuclear Cardiology Society (BNCS) survey. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recommended this should increase to about 4,000 scans per million population per year, based on current revascularisation and coronary angiogram rates. This article explains what is involved in a myocardial perfusion scan (MPS), giving you the information to answer your patients’ questions.

Stroke and TIA management

Tessa, age 68, rarely attends the surgery. She arrives on a Monday morning, however, saying that she had a ‘funny turn’ over the weekend. “I couldn’t think straight and my words came out all wrong. My arm was tingling like no-one’s business so I took to my bed to sleep it off. I still feel a bit queer this morning so Pete said I should pop down and get checked over.” What could be the problem with Tessa and what should you do?

Editorial

Well, spring has sprung! The first few months of each year are a good time to look forward to the challenges ahead. This can be rather daunting, but the bright flowers of spring give us glimpses of hope. In the same way, we hope that this issue of BJPCN can – like a bunch of daffodils – brighten up your day-to-day work in coping with the “warp speed” of change in the NHS.

Advances in Vascular Surgery

Vascular surgery is an area that is constantly evolving, with new techniques being developed and existing ones improved. It is used to remove atheroma from arteries – including cardiac and carotid arteries and to treat varicose veins. In this article, we review the range of different types of vascular surgery that patients may undergo. What do they involve and when are they used?

Editorial

New starts. It may be a cliché, but the end of each year and the first month of the next one offer the chance for a new start for us all – health professionals and patients. And for the British Journal of Primary Care Nursing (BJPCN), we have a whole selection box of new starts for our readers and the patients we care for

Beating Arrhythmias

Arrhythmias are extremely common. They are usually benign but their significance depends on the symptoms they cause. Some arrhythmias are more serious and can be life-threatening. In this article we clarify the causes of arrhythmias and help you sort out the different types that can occur, dividing them into the two main categories – tachyarrhythmias, where the heart rate is faster than normal, and bradyarrhythmias, where the heart rate is much slower than normal.

Heart Murmurs – When Are They Significant?

Heart murmurs – abnormal sounds heard through the stethoscope – are caused by turbulent blood flow in the heart or blood vessels. They can be associated with a range of conditions, including valve defects, high blood pressure and heart failure in adults and congenital heart defects in children. Patients should be investigated carefully to identify the underlying cause, which will determine treatment and prognosis. Some pathological murmurs require no treatment. If they are severe, however, surgery may be needed to correct the causative defect. Drug treatments may be indicated for some murmurs.

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