World Heart Day

Heart disease and stroke is the world's largest killer, claiming 17.5 million lives each year. That's why World Heart Day (which is celebrated on the last Sunday of September every year) was created, to create public awareness of risk factors for heart disease (mostly heart attack) and stroke and to promote preventive measures.

All families should know the warning signs of heart attack and what to do when they occur. They should also know that triple zero (000) is the number to call for this life-threatening emergency.

The Heart Foundation urges all families to team up and talk about how to react when someone starts to experience warning signs of a heart attack. Below are the warning signs listed and the what to do steps that you and your family should know.

Warning Signs

The warning signs of heart attack vary. The symptoms usually last for at least 10 minutes and you may experience more than one of the symptoms:

• Pain in the chest: A heart attack usually causes discomfort or pain in the centre of the chest. The pain may come on suddenly, or sometimes starts slowly, developing over minutes. It may feel like tightness, pressure, heaviness, fullness, or squeezing. The feeling has been described as: 'like a steel band tightening around my chest', 'like an elephant sitting on my chest' or 'like a red hot poker in the centre of my chest'. The pain may be severe, moderate or even mild.
• Pain spreading: The chest discomfort may spread to the neck and throat, jaw, shoulders, the back, either or both arms and even into the wrists and hands.
• Discomfort in the upper body: Some people do not get any chest pain -only discomfort in parts of the upper body. There may be a choking feeling in the throat. The arms may feel 'heavy' or 'useless'.
• Other symptoms: Often there may also be difficulty breathing, nausea or vomiting, a cold sweat or a feeling of being dizzy or light-headed.

What to do

If you experience any of the warning signs of heart attack:

1. Immediately stop what you are doing and rest.
2. If you are with someone, tell them what you are experiencing.
3. If your symptoms are severe, get worse quickly or last for 10 minutes (even if they are mild), this is an emergency. Get help fast.