Our Cardiology Services at the Women's Cardiac Center
At the Women’s Cardiac Center, we offer a multidisciplinary approach to specialized cardiac care for women.
Conditions We Treat
We treat the full spectrum of cardiovascular conditions, with specialized expertise in diagnosing and treating women with difficult to manage, complex, or confusing conditions. We have expertise in treating heart conditions in specific patients, including:
- Women with heart disease caused by cancer treatment or complicated by cancer
- Women with menopause-related cardiac health concerns
- Pregnant and postpartum women
- We offer ongoing care for pregnancy-related cardiac conditions, including postpartum risk assessments.
- We are experienced in treating women with cardiovascular issues who would like preconception counseling.
Evaluation and Diagnostics
Cardiovascular diseases and stroke are the number one cause of death in American women and, alarmingly, almost two-thirds of women who died suddenly had no symptoms. Because symptoms in women are subtler than in men, women are less likely to go to the emergency room when experiencing symptoms, and women may receive less aggressive treatment when they do go to the hospital.
At the Women’s Cardiac Center, our goal is to address this disparity in the recognition and treatment of heart disease. Each new patient at the Women’s Cardiac Center has a complete review of her medical, family, and social history, and a comprehensive cardiovascular physical examination. Additional cardiac testing such as blood tests, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram and stress testing may be provided as needed.
Diagnosing Unexplained Chest Pain in Women
Women may present with chest pain or other less common symptoms indicating a possible heart attack. An angiogram is performed, but an angiogram can only visualize blockages to the three main blood vessels of the heart.
A newly recognized class of heart attack called MINOCA (myocardial infarction with nonobstructive coronary arteries) is caused by blockages in the microvasculature or small blood vessels of the heart that cannot be diagnosed with an angiogram.
Women are twice as likely to have this type of heart attack.
Latest Technology to Diagnose MINOCA
New technology called the CoroFlow Cardiovascular System is an innovative software that measures the blood flow through the microvessels of the heart to assess for blockages or disease. Once diagnosed, these patients can then be successfully managed with medication. '
The 2023 Miriam Hospital’s Gala & Auction Fund-a-Need supported the purchase of this advanced technology to enable a definitive diagnosis of MINOCA caused by microvascular blockages.
Preventive and Rehabilitative Services
In addition to offering a full range of clinical services, we offer cardiac rehabilitation and behavioral medicine services to help women learn about and sustain behaviors that can improve their cardiac health and quality of life. Among our preventive and rehabilitative services are the following:
- Cardiac rehabilitation programs, which offer both cardiac rehabilitation and maintenance and prevention programs
- The lipid and prevention program dedicated to reducing the risk of first and recurrent heart attacks in at-risk adults
- Programs that help women adopt and sustain behaviors that can improve cardiac health and quality of life:
- behavioral medicine program
- weight loss programs
- a smoking cessation program
- nutrition counseling
- physical therapy
- mindfulness-based stress reduction group sessions to help patients cope with stress, anger, anxiety and loss
- fitness and exercise programs
Contact Us
For more information or to schedule an appointment, please call 401-793-7870.