Montana

It’s finally summertime!  This is the season for activities in the backyard and cookouts with neighbors. However, would you know what to do if a family member or friend experienced sudden cardiac arrest (SCA)? Eighty percent of SCAs happen outside of the hospital- and unfortunately, the majority of Americans do not know how to help or are uncomfortable doing so. The American Heart Association is trying to change that this summer!

During National CPR Week (June 1^st -7^th) and throughout the entire month of June, we’re shining a spotlight on the importance of learning Hands-Only CPR.  In just two simple steps- calling 9-1-1 and pushing hard and fast in the center of the victim’s chest- you could help save a life.  Watch our new PSA and don’t forget to share the link with family and friends (www.heart.org/handsonlyCPR).

Additionally, You’re the Cure advocates like you have been working hard in states across the country to advocate for Hands-Only CPR to be taught to all students before they graduate.  In the time it takes to watch a TV sitcom, students can learn the life-saving skill.  10 states now have CPR in Schools laws, adding over 500,000 life-savers to our communities each year.  But we still have 40 states to go!  Pledge your support for teaching all students to be ‘CPR Smart’ at www.BeCPRSmart.org. 

Thanks for your help to make CPR awareness a priority this summer!

PS- Are you trained in CPR?  Post our “CPR Ready” image as your profile pic on Facebook and Twitter this month to let others know you’re ready to save a life.

Guest Blogger: Lenna Liu, MD, MPH, Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic and Seattle Children’s Hospital

With obesity as a leading risk factor for heart disease and stroke, this epidemic is a serious public health issue that must be addressed. The American Heart Association works with partners across the country to help all Americans improve their health by advocating for healthier environments in schools (e.g. improved nutrition and physical education) and communities (e.g. restaurant menu labeling, active transportation options). While we work together to create healthier environments, we can all take steps to stay active and healthy during the summer months ahead.

With kids out of school, what can parents do for our kids AND for ourselves? Take a cue from First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign and Seattle Children's Hospital and think 7-5-2-1-0.

Eat breakfast 7 days a week.
Eating breakfast daily helps get us started on the right foot each day. Skipping meals can often lead to overeating from feeling “over-hungry.” So keep regular, balanced meals throughout the day.

Have 5 helpings of fruit & vegetables each day.
Summer is a great time for fresh fruits and vegetables. Fill up half your plate with these and enjoy. If your child is not a vegetable eater, keep offering them a taste to try.  It often takes children 10-12 times to learn to enjoy or appreciate a food.

Limit screen time to less than 2 hours per day.
TV’s, cellphones, computers, video games…we are surrounded by handheld technology and screens all day long. Here are a few reasonable tips to minimize non-essential (non-work/school-related) screen time:  Keep TV's and computers out of the bedroom.  Eliminate background TV during the day. Don’t eat in front of the TV or other screens. Set clear time limits for kids.

Be physically active at least 1 hour per day.
Get outside and enjoy the summer weather.  Also incorporate activity throughout the day—it doesn’t need to be all in one continuous hour. Park further away, take the stairs, do things as a family (take a walk after dinner, etc.).  Find something your child enjoys!  If they like it, it will be play and they will want to do it more.

Cut down sugary drinks to 0.
Drink more water in these warmer summer months.  Drinking less sugary beverages is one of the easiest ways to reduce excess calories. Encourage your children to drink water (or lowfat milk) instead.

7-5-2-1-0. A combination to better health for your child and your whole family.

Guest Blogger: Lisa Michael

May is American Stroke Month. It makes me wonder how my life would have been different had I known the signs of a stroke. Would I have been as scared when I woke up disoriented and unable to think clearly? When I tried to speak and found it difficult to express what I was thinking, would I have picked up the phone to dial 911? Or when I tried to get dressed and had no balance while standing would I have insisted to the doctor that I should be treated immediately for stroke? Of course when I lost my speech completely and began to lose feeling and movement on my left side, I should have known I was having a stroke, but I was only 19 years old and, in my mind, strokes only happened to older people.

The American Stroke Association has a simple acronym to help people remember and look for signs of stroke; it's called FAST.

F stands for face. Typically, one side of the face will droop, especially if you ask the person to smile. When I didn't know what was happening that morning, I tried to drink some juice -- and it spilled out the left side of my mouth. That's when I decided to go to the hospital.

A stands for arms. If a person lifts her arms out to the side and one arm drifts downward, that's another red flag. I remember that my left side felt heavy, and try as I might, I couldn't get my left arm up without help to pull on my coat.

S stands for speech. A person's speech may be slurred or strange-sounding. When I first woke up with symptoms, my speech was okay but slow. However, it got progressively worse as time passed so by the time I made it to the ER, I was unable to speak at all.

T stands for time. As you can see, time is crucial when someone is suffering a stroke! Again I wonder if I would have called the ambulance immediately would my story be different? The doctors who were deciding treatment for me decided against the clot-busting drug tPA because they were unsure of the timeline (at that time, they didn't know that it could be administered after a certain window without negative effects).

Though I wasn't aware of what was happening when I was having a stroke, and it was a scary time, thankfully my story has a happy ending. I was flown to a larger hospital and went through extensive testing and days of therapy; I was fully recovered within three months. Sadly, this is not the most common result with people who have suffered a stroke. And that makes for one of the biggest reasons to know the warning signs. Feel free to take my story as your lesson, and for more information, please visit www.strokeassociation.org.

Stroke is a medical emergency and time lost is brain lost.  Yet, a recent study published in the American Heart Association journal, Circulation, showed less than one-third of stroke patients arrive at the hospital via ambulance. This can mean delayed treatment and a more difficult recovery.

When you recognize the symptoms of a stroke, call 9-1-1 right away. When stroke patients are transported to the hospital via ambulance, emergency responders can call ahead to ensure the hospital is prepared to receive and quickly treat the patient. Prompt treatment is critical to ensuring positive patient outcomes.

Remember the acronym F.A.S.T. to help you recognize symptoms and what to do:

                F - Face Drooping: Does one side of the face droop or is it numb?

                A - Arm Weakness: Is one arm weak or numb?

                S - Speech Difficulty: Is speech slurred, are they unable to speak, or are they hard to understand?

                T - Time to call 911: If the person shows any of these symptoms, call 9-1-1 immediately.

Do you have a story of stroke survival? Did you recognize the symptoms? Share your stroke story here.

Learn more about the American Heart Association’s advocacy efforts to improve stroke care in every state.

Jessica, Montana

I was a ten-month old baby when I went into heart failure due to a rare virus commonly known as Kawasaki’s disease. This autoimmune virus strikes the circulatory system of young children, often under the age of five before they develop mature antibodies. I have two giant aneurisms on my coronary arteries that are now reduced, but I have been living a relatively normal life with daily medication ever since. I was even on a championship volleyball team during high school and still exercise regularly. When I was sick, the Kawasaki’s disease was incredibly rare and it was difficult for doctors to correctly diagnose me. It has still never been seen in the lab and no one knows exactly how it spreads. Today, however, Kawasaki’s disease is the main cause of childhood heart disease in the U.S. and I have met others who have overcome it. Although I can’t remember being sick, my parents do, and I would never wish that hardship on anyone, especially young parents watching their child’s heart fail. Researchers need your help to find a cure for this childhood disease so children and families alike can avoid this dreadful ordeal.

Guest Blogger: Ginny, Survivor

This past week I had the opportunity to join hundreds of other AHA volunteers from across the country in Washington D.C.  It's amazing how empowered you can feel when you join with other survivors, caretakers, and medical staff with the joint mission of fighting heart disease and stroke. On the first day we took a break from training to join in on a rally to support funding for medical research. We heard stories from various survivors and speeches by supporters of medical research. Needless to say, we all went crazy when a heart survivor took to the podium.

The next day we invaded the Capitol with a sea of red. Meeting with our respective representatives and senators, we were able to share our stories and ask for their support for our two initiatives: restoring funding to the NIH and supporting the Million Hearts campaign. By the end of the two days we were all left feeling empowered and hopeful. To be able to share our stories and find strength and courage from our pain is truly an amazing experience. I encourage all those reading this to find a way to do this yourself; it is the best form of medicine or therapy that you will find!

The sequester has taken effect and the battle over the budget continues in Congress. Yet You’re the Cure advocates are preparing to go to Washington, DC to fight for critical heart and stroke funding. Our Western States Affiliate delegation, made up of survivors, caregivers, researchers, and physicians, represents seven of our ten states.

This tremendous group will urge legislators to restore funding to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that was recently cut by the sequester. While a 5% cut may not sound like a lot, the impact on the NIH was in fact truly significant: a 5% cut to the NIH budget equates to $1.6 billion. This cut reduced the number of grants given, cut more than 20,000 jobs nationwide and reduced economic activity by $3 billion. To repair this economic damage and to ensure the U.S. remains a leader in medical research, advocates will urge Congress to fund the NIH at $32 billion for 2014. Research remains our best hope to find more effective ways to prevent, treat and cure heart disease and stroke.

Advocates will also encourage Congress to allocate $35 million of prevention fund dollars to the Million Hearts Initiative. This will create a nationwide high blood pressure educational campaign. One in three Americans have high blood pressure but many either don’t know it or don’t have it under control. Someone with high blood pressure is four times more likely to die of a stroke and three times more likely to die of heart disease. The Million Hearts Initiative will helps Americans get this dangerous risk factor under control.

You can be a part of this important advocacy event. Send your “heart” to Washington and urge legislators to fund these lifesaving heart and stroke programs. 

Guest Blogger: Lisa Michael

One of the American Heart Association's areas of focus includes Access To Care. This means supporting emergency systems, advocating for AED purchase or placement, and educating citizens in life-saving techniques. Currently for Montana's goal, this translates to CPR training for high school students.

My school requires its teachers and staff to be retrained every two years, usually for only a few hours, in administering CPR. It isn't such a leap, then, that older students could also learn CPR at school, in a short amount of time, to be able to act quickly in an emergency. Rather than running to find a trained adult, the student could call 911 and begin compressions immediately. These two simple steps are all it takes to perform Hands-Only CPR, a proven method to increase the likelihood of survival.

A highlight from a recent scientific statement about targeting CPR training in high-risk neighborhoods says, “Survival rates are influenced in part by bystanders’ willingness to do CPR.” We know that every second counts when responding to an emergency. In fact, the AHA states that, “for every minute that passes without CPR and defibrillation, the chances of survival decreases by 7-10 percent.” If we train young adults to step in and act right away, we can confront these statistics head on.

This advocacy issue is a unique one because it doesn't go through the typical legislative channels. As a teacher, I am informed of my students' requirements by the Montana Office of Public Instruction (OPI), which in turn is influenced, in part, by the State Board of Education. Rather than calling a local representative or state senator, an advocate needs to work at a grass-roots level by speaking with their local school officials – and this needs to happen across the state – for change to be affected. The administration at the district level likely has someone at OPI with whom they can communicate the needs of the community, and when an issue has community support state-wide, the people with decision-making powers will listen.

As an educator, I see the power of knowledge first hand. Our students are intelligent, capable leaders and if we put this training in place, they can truly make a difference.

For more information visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgmledxFe8  

A bipartisan group of women from the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate joined the American Heart Association on Valentine’s Day to ‘Go Red’ in support of the 43 million women who are currently living with heart disease.

Women members from the House and Senate gathered for a photo at the U.S. Capitol dressed in red to remind people across the country that heart disease is not just a “man’s disease.”  It is the number one killer of women in the United States and accounts for one out of three female deaths annually. Every minute one woman dies because of heart disease.

February is American Heart Month and it also marks the 10th anniversary of the American Heart Association’s ‘Go Red for Women’ campaign. In the last decade more than 627,000 women’s lives have been saved and awareness that heart disease is women’s number one killer has increased 23 percent.

Guest Blogger - Lisa Michael

As many of you know, the American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women movement recently celebrated the 10th annual Wear Red Day. When I initially got involved as an advocate with You're the Cure, this event was one of the easiest and best places to begin my service. During my first year, I was nervous as I presented my story to my colleagues at work, asked them to wear red and requested that they donate what they could. Fortunately, I had a compassionate boss and an encouraging staff turn out in support. In fact, I've been hosting Wear Red Day long enough that they've come to expect it every year!

This year was the best yet – not because I raised a lot of money – but because I touched the most people. It's amazing how talking to people about my preparations led to a chain of events that surpassed anything I could have planned myself. Here's how it went:

• I attended a new craft group and made some scrapbook-style signs for my event using old brochures and prints. Here I was able to tell my story to an old high-school friend and her mother.
• While my family has known about my previous Wear Red Days, they've never held events. Then, the week before the Day, my sister and my mom volunteered to make heart-shaped cookies for their respective colleagues. I was able to give them some handouts to set on the tables, too. I found out later that each of them had shared my story with the people around them at work and they had set out envelopes for donations. This basically tripled my fundraising efforts!
• I always bring goodies to set up in my staff room. This year I brought some sweets, carrots cut into the shape of hearts (thanks, Mom!), strawberries, and blueberries. I also printed the new research article that details the benefits of the berries.
• I co-teach a leadership class on Fridays, so when I arrived, my colleague asked if I wanted to explain to the students what was happening that day. I ended up showing a video about the Go Red For Women campaign, sharing my story, and making a connection to the Jump Rope for Heart event that we'll at the school in two weeks. I'd never talked to my students about Go Red before this year, but they were really interested and excited to get involved!

As you can see, my event was successful because I reached out to others. It's not too late to sponsor a Wear Red Day – the whole month of February is Heart Month! Start small, tell your story and wear RED.