Each minute after a heart attack, more heart tissue is damaged or dies. Urgent treatment is needed to fix blood flow and restore oxygen levels. Oxygen is given immediately. Specific heart attack treatment depends on whether there's a partial or complete blockage of blood flow.
Medications to treat a heart attack might include:
• Aspirin. Aspirin reduces blood clotting. It helps keep blood moving through a narrowed artery. If you called your local emergency number, you may be told to chew aspirin. Emergency medical providers may give you aspirin immediately.
• Clot busters (thrombolytics or fibrinolytics). These drugs help break up any blood clots that are blocking blood flow to the heart. The earlier a thrombolytic drug is given after a heart attack, the less the heart is damaged and the greater the chance of survival.
• Other blood-thinning medications. A medicine called heparin may be given by IV or injection. Heparin makes the blood less sticky and less likely to form clots.
• Nitroglycerin. This medication widens the blood vessels. It helps improve blood flow to the heart. Nitroglycerin is used to treat sudden chest pain (angina). It's given as a pill under the tongue, as a pill to swallow or as an injection.
• Morphine. This medicine is given to relieve chest pain that doesn't go away with nitroglycerin.
• Beta blockers. These medications slow the heartbeat and decrease blood pressure. Beta blockers can limit the amount of heart muscle damage and prevent future heart attacks. They are given to most people who are having a heart attack.
• ACE inhibitors. These drugs lower blood pressure and reduce stress on the heart.
Statins. These drugs help lower unhealthy cholesterol levels. Too much bad (low-density lipoprotein, or LDL) cholesterol can clog arteries.
Effective compressions create an artificial pump and send oxygenated blood to the brain to keep the brain alive.
CPR also keeps blood and oxygen moving through the heart muscle itself so that it has the best chance of being successfully defibrillated when the AED arrives.
After a Sudden Cardiac Arrest, brain damage will start to set in within 4 minutes and is irreversible after 10 minutes. CPR is the person’s only chance of survival while waiting for an automated external defibrillator to arrive.
Beyond off-loading stress, practicing yoga may help
•lower blood pressure,
•blood cholesterol and
•blood glucose levels,
• heart rate,
making it a useful lifestyle intervention.
One study has shown that blood measurements and waist circumference—a marker for heart disease—improved in middle-aged adults with metabolic syndrome who practiced yoga for three months.
Another study has shown that slow-paced yoga classes twice a week reduced the frequency of atrial fibrillation episodes in patients with that condition.
In another report, patients with heart failure who went through an eight-week yoga program showed improvement in exercise capacity and quality of life.
They also had lower blood levels of markers for inflammation, which contributes to heart disease.
source : https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-yoga-heart-connection
If you've had a heart attack, a surgery or procedure may be done to open a blocked artery. Surgeries and procedures to treat a heart attack include:
Coronary angioplasty and stenting. This procedure is done to open clogged heart arteries.
It may also be called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).
If you've had a heart attack, this procedure is often done during a procedure to find blockages (cardiac catheterization).
During angioplasty, a heart doctor (cardiologist) guides a thin, flexible tube (catheter) to the narrowed part of the heart artery.
A tiny balloon is inflated to help widen the blocked artery and improve blood flow.
A small wire mesh tube (stent) may be placed in the artery during angioplasty. The stent helps keep the artery open. It lowers the risk of the artery narrowing again.
Some stents are coated with a medication that helps keep the arteries open.
Coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG).
This is open-heart surgery.
A surgeon takes a healthy blood vessel from another part of the body to create a new path for blood in the heart.
The blood then goes around the blocked or narrowed coronary artery. CABG may be done as an emergency surgery at the time of a heart attack.
Sometimes it's done a few days later, after the heart has recovered a bit.
Cardiac rehabilitation is a personalized exercise and education program that teaches ways to improve heart health after heart surgery.
It focuses on exercise, a heart-healthy diet, stress management and a gradual return to usual activities.
Most hospitals offer cardiac rehabilitation starting in the hospital.
The program typically continues for a few weeks or months after you return home.
People who attend cardiac rehab after a heart attack generally live longer and are less likely to have another heart attack or complications from the heart attack.
If cardiac rehab is not recommended during your hospital stay, ask your provider about it.
•Angioplasty: Special tubing with an attached deflated balloon is threaded up to the coronary arteries.
• Angioplasty, Laser: Similar to angioplasty except that the catheter has a laser tip that opens the blocked artery.
• Artificial heart valve surgery: Replaces an abnormal or diseased heart valve with a healthy one.
• Atherectomy: Similar to angioplasty except that the catheter has a rotating shaver on its tip to cut away plaque from the artery.
• Bypass surgery: Treats blocked heart arteries by creating new passages for blood to flow to your heart muscle.
• Cardiomyoplasty: An experimental procedure in which skeletal muscles are taken from a patient’s back or abdomen.
• Heart transplant: Removes a diseased heart and replaces it with a donated healthy human heart.
•Minimally invasive heart surgery: An alternative to standard bypass surgery.
• Radiofrequency ablation: A catheter with an electrode at its tip is guided through the veins to the heart muscle to destroy carefully selected heart muscle cells in a very small area.
•Stent procedure: A stent is a wire mesh tube used to prop open an artery during angioplasty.
• Transmyocardial revascularization (TMR): A laser is used to drill a series of holes from the outside of the heart into the heart’s pumping chamber.
Some patients who have heart attacks, that have stents placed in their coronary arteries, or undergo coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) are treated with two types of antiplatelet agents at the same time to prevent blood clotting. This is called dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT).
One antiplatelet agent is aspirin. Almost everyone with coronary artery disease, including those who have had a heart attack, stent, or CABG are treated with aspirin for the rest of their lives. A second type of antiplatelet agent, called a P2Y12 inhibitor, is usually prescribed for months or years in addition to the aspirin therapy.
The type of medication and the duration of your treatment will vary based on your condition and other risk factors. The risks and benefits of DAPT should be discussed with your health care provider.
If you had a heart attack and a coronary artery stent placed, or you are being treated with medical therapy (no stent, clot buster or surgery), in addition to aspirin, you should also be on a P2Y12 inhibitor for 6-12 months. In some cases, it may be advisable to be on DAPT longer.
This will need to be discussed with your healthcare provider. The three P2Y12 inhibitors currently available that could be prescribed are clopidogrel, prasugrel, and ticagrelor.
Studies have shown that two of these drugs (ticagrelor, prasugrel) are “stronger” than clopidogrel, and are a little better at decreasing the complications of blood clots. These two stronger agents, however, slightly increase bleeding.
One of these drugs (prasugrel) should not be used by patients who have had a stroke or a transient ischemic attack (TIA). You will be prescribed the drug that is best for you, based on your risk of blood clots and bleeding.
For example, according to the FDA(link opens in new window), clopidogrel does decrease the risk of stroke and MI, but does not change the risk of death for specific patients. The choice of what type of medication, cost of the medication and duration of treatment will be determined in discussions with your health care provider.
source : https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/heart-attack/treatment-of-a-heart-attack