MISHAWAKA, Ind. -- According to Stanford Health since 1970, deaths from heart attacks have dropped nearly 90 percent thanks to intervention and preventative care much like what they offer at the Saint Joseph Health System in Mishawaka.
Patients who suffer from cardiac arrest, heart failure, or a heart attack all have the opportunity to attend this rehab center. Over the course of 18 sessions, patients work to get their bodies healthy while also learning how to listen to their body when circumstances like these arise.
The patients are taught about nutrition, and other steps to keep their bodies safe while also learning the warning signs of a heart attack and how to perform CPR.
Two types of courses are provided in this program, pulmonary and cardiac, to cover all the bases of heart health. Since no patient is the same, each gets their own treatment plan to work towards a happier, healthier heart.
Mary Shafer, a Clinical Exercise Physiologist at the rehabilitation center, explains, “We do an intake appointment with these patients, just to get them familiarized with the program and do some initial assessments on them, but also get to know them. Each patient gets an individualized treatment plan while they're in the program that's updated every 30 days, and so it gives us kind of a backbone of what to focus on specifically for that patient.”
Each of these patients has a different story. ABC57's Sidney Moore spoke with a current patient whose night started out completely normal.
Sandy Nufer says, “I've worked for Notre Dame Parking Services. I worked the last one of the last games, and I even went to the store, came home, talked with my husband and told him that I felt tired. I went to bed. I lay a lot on my left side, and it was about 10 after 10, I decided to turn on my back, and as I did across my chest, I had I felt like I pulled a muscle, but it didn't stop.”
She then used her phone to identify what she was dealing with. "I called Siri and asked her about a white woman, 72 what would be the symptoms for a heart attack, and those that I just mentioned were definitely all there, and we immediately went to the emergency room.”
Another patient at the rehabilitation center has attended this program three times over 15 years. The first occurrence being a heart attack, the second his micro valve was not closing and the third stemming from a blood clot.
Jerry Ambrose visited a high school football game and as he trekked up to the top of the bleachers, his health took a turn. "About two steps from the top of the bleachers. I couldn't catch my breath. I went out. I was out for a minute and a half in the bleachers, and everything got me back. All they did was bag me and did the chest compressions and pretty much, um, got me back.”
While both these patients have had life altering events happen to them, one thing they have in common is their fight to get healthy again, and this rehabilitation program is helping them do that.
Nufer explains, “It and given me the confidence to go forward, because it's very scary. I mean, your life just totally changes in a blink.”