Bid to raise Rotherham heart health awareness

MORE needs to be done in Rotherham to spread knowledge about heart health, according to the charity behind a new campaign.

Earlier this year, the British Heart Foundation officially made Rotherham a Heart Town, with more education planned to highlight common heart problems and help people cope with emergencies.

More than 2,140 people in the NHS Rotherham area are currently living with the consequences of heart failure.

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But new research released by the BHF has revealed that almost nine tenths of people (88 per cent) in the Yorkshire and Humber area are unaware of the effect that heart failure can have on people’s lives.

The survey also revealed that two-fifths of people in Yorkshire and the Humber believed that heart failure meant that your heart stopped working, when in fact people living with severe heart failure often face a prolonged sentence of suffering, in which every day can be a struggle

The campaign, part of the BHF’s Mending Broken Hearts Appeal, aims to challenge common misconceptions about heart failure using the striking visual image of a drowning man to illustrate how severe heart failure can cause people’s lungs to fill with fluid, leaving them struggling to breathe.

The research also showed that almost a third of people in the region thought that once the heart had been damaged it was able to repair itself.

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While medical advances mean more people are surviving heart attacks, they cause permanent damage to the heart muscle which can leave people with heart failure \_ for which there is currently no cure. 

The BHF said that there was still hope, with the Mending Broken Hearts Appeal seeking support to fund regenerative medicine research that could cure heart failure.

The cutting edge research programme involves stem cell research and developmental biology to work out how to repair or replace damaged heart muscle.

Prof Peter Weissberg, medical director at the BHF, said: “More and more people are surviving heart attacks due to the huge advances we’ve made in cardiology, but that isn’t the end of the story.

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“A heart attack causes damage which can leave a person facing a horrendous daily struggle.

“We believe a cure for heart failure is a goal we can achieve.

“We want to advance the science so that when someone has a heart attack, doctors have the tools to help repair the heart.

“What we need now is for the public to help us fund this research and take it from the laboratory bench to the hospital bedside.”

The BHF’s Mending Broken Hearts Appeal is currently researching a cure for heart failure bringing hope to millions worldwide. You can support this vital BHF research at bhf.org.uk/findthecure