Georgia Joins Global Recognition of Stenocardia Month
The campaign to raise awareness of stenocardia began in Georgia with a presentation of a social project organized by the European Cardiology Society (ESC) Working Group and French Pharmaceutical Company Servie. The information campaign is being conducted locally by the Association of Cardiovascular Diseases Prevention and Rehabilitation Association in Georgia.
Within the framework of the campaign, Tbilisi hosted a scientific conference on the topic: ‘Personalized approach to stable heart ischemic disease.’ At the conference, which was led by Zurab Klimiashvili, President of the Association for Cardiovascular Diseases Prevention and Rehabilitation, were invited doctors from Tbilisi’s leading cardiology clinics.
The awareness-raising campaigns of various illnesses gain importance by the year. This year, the world announced April as the month of stenocardia. Georgia joined the initiative and started a stenocardia informational campaign called "Listen to Your Heart", which aims to inform the public about ischemic heart diseases. The aim of the campaign is to raise public awareness about the ischemic heart disease so that patients do not ignore the symptoms, visit a doctor in time and clearly understand what's going on.
Klimiashvili and Director of Georgian representative of the Pharmaceutical Company Servie Maia Khetsuriani talked about the symptoms, early diagnostics and management of the disease, as well as planned activities during the campaign. Leading specialists of the field were also invited to the conference in order to jointly define priorities on how to promote early diagnosis of stenocardia and disease prevention.
"Listen to your heart and control stenocardia together” is a campaign to explain the signs and symptoms that characterize stenocardia, advising people to listen to their bodies to catch the early-warning signs and go to the doctor if necessary. Stenocardia is a top global issue in complications and disability in various forms. Sometimes it is deadly," said Klimiashvili.
"This year, the world has recognized April as the Month of Stenocardia. Accordingly, our company Servie Georgia joins this initiative together with the Association for the Prevention and Rehabilitation of Cardiovascular Diseases,” said Servie Director Khetsuriani. “Our company will try to provide comprehensive information on the symptoms of the disease and its detection, and give advice what to ask the doctor in order to avoid a heart attack.”
In terms of health economics, stenocardia is a big burden for the public, negatively affecting the quality of life and increasing by 1.5 times the risk of losing your job, three times the chance of losing work-capabilities and four times, depression. Despite these alarming indications, stenocardia remains outside the control of doctors. It means that many patients do not take appropriate action and, as a result, their health conditions worsen. Recent research has shown that in 43% of patients with coronary artery disease, stenocardia is not diagnosed. 44% of patients with angina are not treated with enough medicinal therapy. These facts confirm that important efforts are needed to improve the treatment of stenocardia both on the side of doctors and patients.
By Mariam Merabishvili