Study illustrates the profound impact of postponing cardiovascular surgeries due to COVID-19
In March 2020, when the pandemic hit, everything slowed, including non-essential medical procedures such as elective surgeries, to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
Six weeks later, Mary Byrnes, Ph.D., an assistant research scientist in the Department of Surgery at Michigan Medicine, began calling University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center patients whose surgeries had been canceled or delayed. She wanted to hear about their experiences what undergoing surgery meant to them, how postponing their operations had affected them, whether the existence of the coronavirus complicated how they felt about their bodies and about surgery.
Delaying cardiovascular surgeries due to COVID-19 has psychological effects on patients eurekalert.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eurekalert.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Photo Courtesy of the American Heart Association
Heart health was never something Dani Aylsworth thought much about. The 33-year-old military veteran always figured heart problems happened to people who were much older.
But in 2017, all that changed. She came down with a case of viral pneumonia, which turned into sepsis. To help fight the potentially deadly infection, doctors placed Aylsworth into a medically induced coma. When she woke up 12 days later, she couldn’t speak or walk. Doctors told her the infection had weakened her heart and she was suffering from heart failure.
About a week and a half later, Aylsworth was able to go home to her then 8-year-old daughter, Zoe. Doctors prescribed medication, and she wore an external defibrillator vest, which detects life-threatening heart rhythms and sends an electric jolt to normalize them.