Most common heart-related
conditions
- provided by America's leading
cardiologists
What is PAD?
If your arteries become too narrow for normal
blood flow, your feet and legs will not get the
amount of blood they need. This common disorder,
peripheral artery disease (PAD), can cause long-term
damage to your nerves and other tissues. Learning
the risk factors can help you avoid permanent problems.
What is Peripheral Arterial Disease?
Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a
blockage of arteries in the extremities, which can
cause cramping in the legs, hips and thighs. Tune
in to learn more about PAD.
Participants:
Robert S. Schwartz, MD, FACC
Director of Preclinical Research, Minneapolis Heart
Institute,
Minneapolis, MN
Alfred A. Bove, MD, PhD, FACC
Chief of Cardiology; Temple University Medical School
Webcast Transcript:
ANNOUNCER: Chances are you've never heard of peripheral
arterial disease, or PAD, a condition that affects
an estimated 8—12 million people in the United
States alone.
Physicians recommend that if you're over fifty,
you should be aware of this all-too-common disease
that can affect the blood vessels of your entire
body.
ALFRED A. BOVE, MD: Peripheral arterial disease,
which we sometimes call PAD, involves the blood
vessels of the whole body. It's the equivalent of
coronary disease, but in the other vessels of the
body. This is often associated with blockage of
arteries in the legs, which limits the blood supply
to the lower parts of the legs and the feet.
ROBERT S. SCHWARTZ, MD: Atherosclerosis and PAD
are pretty much the same thing. Atherosclerosis
is the hardening of the arteries. It's the plaque
that builds up; it's the calcium, the fats, the
fibrous tissue, the scarring that grows into the
arteries and stops the blood from flowing into the
legs
ALFRED A. BOVE, MD: Since PAD is a disease of blood
vessels throughout the body, the warning signs depend
on what blood vessels are affected. For example,
if the blood vessels of the legs are affected, then
many people will experience pain in the muscles,
that is, cramp-like pain, which we call claudication.
ROBERT S. SCHWARTZ, MD: The patient would start
out walking, develop a cramp in the calves, in the
thighs, in the buttocks. Cramping sensation that
goes away when the patient stops walking; when the
patient resumes walking, the cramp typically comes
back, indicating a distinct lack of blood flow into
that muscle bed when the muscle is called on to
exercise.
ANNOUNCER: PAD affects as many as one quarter of
the population over 60, yet the majority of those
affected by PAD show no outward symptoms at all.
Many times doctors have to rely on a patient's medical
history and risk factors to determine whether they
have PAD.
ALFRED A. BOVE, MD: The people that are at risk
for developing peripheral arterial disease, PAD,
are usually people that are older and who have the
risks that we know are the same risks as those that
cause coronary artery disease. High blood pressure,
high cholesterol, cigarette smoking and diabetes,
in particular, are major risk factors for PAD.
ANNOUNCER: After it's determined that a patient
has symptoms of PAD, doctors will use simple techniques
to diagnose the disease.
ALFRED A. BOVE, MD: Many physicians will approach
a patient by just feeling the pulses in the feet
or in the legs. The pulses in the neck one can feel
with the finger. So that the first part of diagnosis
is physical examination and looking for signs of
diminished pulses in different areas of the body.
A relatively simple tool for measuring the presence
of PAD is to use a blood pressure cuff. It's a measure
of the comparison between the blood pressure in
the lower part of the leg and the blood pressure
in the arm, for example, and that's called the ankle-brachial
index. And what it is is the ratio of the blood
pressure measured in the lower extremity to the
blood pressure measured in the upper extremity,
the arm.
ANNOUNCER: Once PAD is diagnosed, there are a variety
of options physicians can recommend for treatment.
ROBERT S. SCHWARTZ, MD: Peripheral arterial disease
can be treated many ways. The first way is to treat
it medically. It's very important to stay on a low-fat
diet. It's most important to stop smoking. The next
step is the utilization of stents. We all know that
stents have become used in a big way in the arteries
of the heart. We also now are able to use stents
in the arteries of the leg or in the pelvis to improve
the blood flow.
Finally, for severe cases of PAD, surgery is used
in a frequent way to actually bypass the blockages
and restore blood to the legs to keep the legs supplied
adequately with blood.
ANNOUNCER: Another treatment prescribed for PAD
is a monitored exercise program for the patient.
This treatment is used to track muscle cramping,
also known as claudication.
ROBERT S. SCHWARTZ, MD: If you're experiencing
symptoms that you think might be related to peripheral
arterial disease, the best thing is to get in to
see your doctor. Your doctor will take a simple
physical exam, try to feel the pulses in your feet,
also in your legs, at the groin level and at the
knee level, and if pulses are present there, that
pretty much rules out the possibility that PAD is
present. On the other hand if the pulses are present
but diminished, or possibly even completely absent,
this is a strong suggestion that PAD is present.
How do you know you have PAD?
Millions of Americans suffer from peripheral arterial disease (PAD),
a disease that occurs when your blood cannot flow efficiently through your arteries.
Find out it you are at risk for this serious disease.
Participants:
Robert S. Schwartz, MD, FACC
Director of Preclinical Research, Minneapolis Heart
Institute,
Minneapolis, MN
Alfred A. Bove, MD, PhD, FACC
Chief of Cardiology; Temple University Medical School
Webcast Transcript:
ANNOUNCER: Almost eight million people in the United
States who have peripheral arterial disease remain
undiagnosed and unaware of this condition. Knowing
your risk factors can be an important first step
in determining if you have PAD.
ROBERT S. SCHWARTZ, MD: The prevalence of peripheral
arterial disease is quite significant. As many as
a fourth of the population over age sixty has peripheral
arterial disease. Patients that are risk of developing
PAD are principally the same people who are at risk
of having heart attacks, because the disease process
is the same. People who are smokers, people who
eat a lot of fat, that is, high cholesterol in the
diet, people who are diabetics, people who have
a family history of artery disease, whether it's
in the heart or in the periphery. Also being a male:
Men have a higher risk of PAD than do women.
ANNOUNCER: And learning about common symptoms of
PAD is key to helping your physician diagnose the
disease.
ALFRED A. BOVE, MD: PAD can cause symptoms in a
variety of parts of the body. One of the most common
problems is blockage to the arteries in the legs,
and the patient would experience cramps or pain
in the legs with exercise, with walking or climbing
stairs, for example; that we call claudication.
ROBERT S. SCHWARTZ, MD: Can PAD be mistaken for
other conditions? Absolutely. The most common mistake
is called pseudoclaudication. Pseudoclaudication
is cramping of the muscles and is usually caused
at rest, typically by spinal stenosis, that is,
a narrowing of the spinal column, impinging on the
nerves to the leg. And what that does is gives,
oftentimes, a sensation of cramping that's not due
to a lack of blood flow, but rather due to a nervous
problem in the central nervous system.
ALFRED A. BOVE, MD: A lot of people complain of
cold fingers and cold hands and cold feet, and the
most common reason for that is cold weather. The
old adage of, "If your hands are cold, put
on your hat," is still true. If your body is
cold, it'll constrict the blood vessels in your
arms and your hands and your feet, and your hands
and feet will be cold, not because of PAD, but because
the blood vessels are constricted to some extent
in a cold environment.
ANNOUNCER: If you think that you have the risk
factors and possible symptoms of peripheral arterial
disease, it's important to schedule a visit with
your physician.
ALFRED A. BOVE, MD: One of the important and interesting
problems with PAD is it's often silent for a long
time before a patient is aware that there's a problem.
When a symptom appears, it's usually very late in
the process. That is, the blood vessels have been
damaged and been narrowing for a relatively long
period of time before a symptom appears.
ROBERT S. SCHWARTZ, MD: If you're experiencing
symptoms that you think might be related to peripheral
arterial disease, the best thing is to get in to
see your doctor. Your doctor will take a simple
physical exam, try to feel the pulses in your feet,
also in your legs, at the groin level and at the
knee level, and if pulses are present there, that
pretty much rules out the possibility that PAD is
present.
The information
published on this page has been provided by the
Heart Authority
in collaboration with Cardiosource – American College of Cardiology
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