The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : At Apollo, a multidisciplinary approach to heart care

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 01, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

At Apollo, a multidisciplinary approach to heart care

M. Dinesh Varma

In Apollo's new scheme, a team of experts will do the first review

CHENNAI: A multidisciplinary disease management approach for congestive heart failure has been launched at Apollo Hospitals, aiming at benefits ranging from better treatment outcomes and quality of life to lesser hospitalisation tenure and costs for patients.

In place of the established hospital practice where heart failure patients establishes contact with the cardiologist, the first review of a patient reporting at Apollo is now conducted by a multidisciplinary team that comprises a cardiologist, cardiothoracic surgeons, nurse and clinical psychologist.

"Heart disease is too complex a condition to be comprehensively tackled by the cardiology speciality alone," said S. Shanmugasundaram, cardiologist at Apollo and medical adviser to the Chennai Heart Education and Research Society.

The Centre for Advanced Heart and Lung Disease, located near the diagnostic facilities, has put in place a multidisciplinary team which works for a evidence-based treatment outcome. A multidisciplinary approach to treating heart failure could be more effective than the single window system of looking at the condition from the cardiac perspective alone, he said.

Core concept

The core concept is to empower patients to manage various lifestyle risk factors through a mix of exercise sessions and education on stress management, risk factor modification and nutrition. Patient education was an important component of multidisciplinary management. As in the management of diabetes, heart patients are trained in self-care through drug compliance and diet control. "For instance, patients are taught to check their weight every day and adjust the dosage of diuretics if he has gained around two kg quickly," said N. Ramakrishnan, chief of critical care medicine.

Most chronic patients suffer from bouts of depression and anxiety and require counselling from the clinical psychologist while the role of the nurse would be to monitor the patient's cardiac status once he/she leaves the hospital. Based on the risk stratification of the heart condition, the patients were informed about the treatment options available and the most appropriate intervention was chosen, said T. Sunder, cardiothoracic surgeon.

Doctors say that heart problems manifest as hypertension, heart valve disease, infection of heart muscle, cardiomyopathy, or coronary artery disease. Doctors say that whenever indicated, the expertise of other specialists will be utilised.

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