Wednesday, August 18: Strong At Heart
Heart attacks are the number one cause of on-duty firefighter deaths. Heart disease affects 80 million Americans, and the emergency services are not immune. In fact, the stress put on the heart and body by emergency response activities creates an increased risk of heart attack. Protecting your heart through regular health screenings, proper nutrition, fitness, and lifestyle choices is key to lowering your risk of becoming a statistic.
- Schedule an appointment with your doctor to get screened for heart disease risk factors including blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose levels.
- Have a meeting with your department to educate everyone on what to do if you think you or someone else is suffering from a heart attack. Knowing what to look for and how to react can decrease the risk of serious disabilities or death. Use the NHLBI Heart Attack Survival Plan as a resource.
- Ask a local health professional or hospital to donate their time and resources to conduct free heart-health screenings for your department members, including cholesterol, blood pressure, and glucose level checks. Remind the health professional that they are helping protect their community by protecting their first responders.
- Encourage department members to schedule regular annual physicals, if your department does not already require them. They should speak with their doctors about family history, any concerns they have, and what steps they can take to lower their risk of heart disease.
- Ask a heart attack or stroke survivor from your community to come in to speak to the department members about the importance of heart-health.
- Involve the whole family so that a healthy lifestyle goes beyond the station. Teach your children about the importance of starting a healthy lifestyle early in life, and set an example for your children or family. Use today to initiate the talk, prepare a healthy family meal together, or participate in a family sporting activity.
- Incorporating small changes into every day can lead to big results. Take the stairs instead of the elevator; park in the spot at the back of the lot at the grocery store; replace fries with a salad; drink water at one meal instead of soda; take 5 minutes a day to think about things that you are grateful for; let someone in front of you in traffic. All of these easy activities help create a well-rounded lifestyle that will help keep you mentally and physically healthy. Find more ideas at www.smallstep.gov.
- Increase your physical activity as well as that of your department by organizing a department sports team (such as softball) or a regular department physical activity (such as a running club).
There are many tools available to help you assess your risk of heart and related diseases. These tools are not meant to replace advice from or a consultation with a doctor or healthcare provider. You should consult your doctor if you are concerned about your health or have questions about your risks for heart or other diseases.
Online risk assessment tools include:
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
American Heart Association
American Heart Association
Department of Health and Human Services
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
American Diabetes Association
Heart attack is the leading cause of on-duty death for firefighters. The NVFC launched the Heart-Healthy Firefighter Program in 2003 to combat this alarm statistic through education and resources. Among the resources offered by the program are:
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Health Fair (interactive trade show booth featuring resources, cholesterol screenings, and Wii Fit challenge)
The NVFC Heart-Healthy Firefighter Program’s Health and Wellness Advocate Workshop teaches first responders how to develop and implement a department health and fitness program and become an advocate for wellness within their department. As Health and Wellness Advocates, these first responders will encourage and motivate their department members to adopt heart-healthy behaviors. The free, two-day workshop is taught by ACE-certified instructors from L&T Health and Fitness and includes both classroom components and hands-on training.
Adopt the Heart-Healthy Firefighter Program in your department and commit to embarking on a healthy lifestyle and sticking with the program. When you adopt the program, you gain access to special resources and tools to ensure you have everything you need to succeed. Resources include a department pledge, a guide for securing sponsors for a department health and wellness program, a message board to connect with other health-conscious first responders from across the country, the Fired Up For Fitness Challenge, and much more.
It is very important to get regular screenings for heart disease risk factors. This is the schedule the American Heart Association recommends for heart-health related screenings.
In this five minute podcast, Gail Fast of L&T Health and Fitness discusses the importance of regular health screenings and the types of screenings recommended for different age groups. L&T Health and Fitness provides the health screenings at the NVFC’s Heart-Healthy Firefighter trade show booth. This podcast was recorded in August 2009.
This 2007 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that firefighters are at a greater risk of dying from a heart attack while responding to emergencies. It concluded that emergency firefighting duties were associated with a risk of death from coronary heart disease that was markedly higher than the risk associated with non-emergency duties. Fire suppression was associated with the highest risk, which was approximately 10 to 100 times as high as that for non-emergency duties.
Heather Leader of the American Heart Association (AHA) talks about the AHA Start! program and steps you can take to improve your heart-health. This podcast was recorded in August 2009.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health released this alert to help prevent on-duty cardiovascular deaths among firefighters. Recommendations include that firefighters follow established medical screening guidelines, adopt risk reduction measures during firefighting operations, and develop and participate in comprehensive fitness and wellness programs.
This article looks at the fact that many firefighters aren’t diagnosed with heart disease until the autopsy, and how by taking simple preventative measures such as regular screenings and reducing risk factors firefighters can identify heart disease in advance and avoid tragedies.
FDNNTV.com has produced many stories regarding heart-health in the fire service, including:
The mission of the American Heart Association is to build healthier lives, free from cardiovascular diseases and stroke. AHA offers information, resources, and tools in a variety of areas that affect heart-health, including nutrition, physical activity, maintaining a healthy weight, stress management, and smoking cessation. A few of the resources include:
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Start! (Walking for a Healthier Lifestyle)
NHLBI provides research, training, and education programs to promote the prevention and treatment of heart, lung, and blood diseases and enhance the health of all individuals so that they can live longer and more fulfilling lives. This site includes information and resources on a variety of health topics related to heart, lung, and blood diseases, as well as sleep disorders. Some of the heart-health related resources include:
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Live Healthier, Live Longer (cholesterol education program)
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The Heart Truth (campaign for women)
This page on the NIH web site provides a compendium of links to information and resources about heart disease.
Medline Plus is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. This site offers information, resources, and tools regarding many topics relating to heart-health.
The mission of the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention is to provide public health leadership to improve cardiovascular health for all, reduce the burden, and eliminate disparities associated with heart disease and stroke. The division offers web sites, programs, resources, statistics, and information related to heart disease, stroke, and how to prevent these diseases.