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SCOPH Projects’ Booklet
CHRONIC DISEASES Ladies in Red Aleksandra Herbowska
to draw attention to CVD in women and to raise the awareness that CVD is a serious health problem for them.
Should women worry about CVD? Cardiovascular disease. Who is at risk? – does the answer: “men…” first come to your mind? Maybe it should not anymore...? Since 1984, the number of CVD deaths for females has exceeded those for males [American Heart Association]. Although most of the society regard CVD as a man’s problem, but in fact it is the leading killer of women too. Furthermore, all cardiovascular diseases (both heart diseases and stroke) claim the lives of more women than all forms of cancer combined. Misconception’s consequences … There is a perception of part protection against CVD in women, and actually during the fertile age they do have a lower risk of cardiac events.This may result in people underestimating the problem and leaving women with untreated risk factors. However, we know that as women age the risk increases and after menopause it is as high as in men. Moreover, the clinical manifestations of ischaemic heart disease in women is different from in men.
During the activities organized within the project, mainly in shopping centers, we educate women about heart disease and encourage them to take steps to prevent CVD. To reach these aims we teach them how to change their lifestyle habits to healthy ones. We also hand out leaflets concerning the risks of CVD. Moreover, during every action, we provide for women the opportunity to undergo prophylactic examinations. We take their blood pressure, cholesterol and sugar level, and calculate BMI. At the same time, through the project, we make medical students more sensitive to the CVD problem in women and the importance of prevention in medicine. It is very important for us, future doctors, to know the gender differences concerning heart disease, but also to remember that CVD has no gender boundaries and affects women too.
Women are more likely to have shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting, back or jaw pain - WHO. Unfortunately the awareness of these facts is very low in the society. This lack of knowledge and the misconceptions that CVD is not a real problem for women, leads to many serious consequences: women tend to ignore symptoms of CVD, do not report them to doctors, and therefore are diagnosed later than men. Get involved in the prevention… In SCOPH, IFMSA-Poland, we have decided to take action in order to change this situation. In 2006 we set up a new project: ‘Ladies in red’. The initiative aims
According to WHO, cardiovascular disease accounts for a third of all women’s deaths worldwide. As medical students, we can change it together! So let’s make women start loving their hearts and showing it by practicing a healthy lifestyle! For more information about the project ‘Ladies in red’ do not hesitate to contact NPO of IFMSA-Poland Zuzanna Pawlikowska at npo@ifmsa.pl