Doctors urge better care of those who have already had heart attack or stroke

Doctors are urging better care of those who have already had a heart attack or stroke and are most at risk of a future heart event.

Australia’s most at risk of heart disease are those who have already had a stroke or heart attack, and are not receiving optimal treatment or making healthy lifestyle changes.

A new report to be launched today by the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute says while primary prevention of heart disease has long been the focus, secondary prevention urgently needed to become the target.

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Doctors are urging for more secondary prevention of heart attacks.

About 1.2 million Australians have been diagnosed with heart disease, putting them at 5-7 times higher risk of suffering a future heart event.

Baker Institute director Professor Tom Marwick said after decades of falling death rates from heart disease, the trend was starting to change — most likely driven by obesity and diabetes — and more people were living with heart disease for longer.

“In the coming years, cardiovascular disease is likely to remain the most expensive disease group,” Prof Marwick said.

“Given the high risk faced by people who have experienced a heart attack or stroke, the worrying global trends around cardiovascular disease and the unabated escalation of costs associated with heart disease, strategic investment has never been more important.”

About 1.2 million Australians have been diagnosed with heart disease.

The No Second Chances report calls for a secondary prevention campaign with targets and strategies to improve death and disability rates, boosting access to cardiac rehabilitation, better strategies to help patients keep taking medication, developing ways to more accurately determine a person’s risk, more aggressive treatment in high-risk groups, and more investment into new treatments.

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