Prodromal Symptoms Screening Scale<\/a> that health-care professionals and patients can use to measure heart health and detect early warning signs of heart disease.<\/p>\nDepending on the results, this can lead to further tests such as an angiogram, cardiac catherization or running a lipid profile, which involves measuring fat levels in the blood.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe warning symptoms of a heart attack arrive very transiently,\u201d says O\u2019Keefe-McCarthy. \u201cThey come and go fleetingly, weeks, months and days prior to having a cardiac event.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have described them as unusual, unpredictable and unexpected, so that\u2019s why they don\u2019t recognize them,\u201d she says. People who are genetically pre-disposed to heart disease, lead a sedentary lifestyle, are obese or have diabetes should pay particular attention, she says.<\/p>\n
But for O\u2019Keefe-McCarthy, it\u2019s not enough just to relay information to people at risk of, or who are living with, heart disease. She says facts and symptoms often are ignored or glazed over.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of my research with the Heart Innovation Research Program is to make meaningful messages that resonate so they can be taken up and remembered,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Keefe-McCarthy and her research team do this by taking an arts-based approach \u2013 called the ABELE (arts-based embodied layered exploration) method \u2013 to spread information on hidden and early indications of heart disease through paintings, poetry, photographs, objects and other forms of art.<\/p>\n
These images are designed to engage people\u2019s various communications styles and appeal to the different ways they process information, says O\u2019Keefe-McCarthy.<\/p>\n
The artwork and poems draw upon research participants\u2019 thoughts, feelings and experiences before, during and after their heart attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor people who have heart disease, it\u2019s a journey for them: how they experience having an attack, what they didn\u2019t know, what they wanted to know, how foolish they felt at not knowing the symptoms,\u201d says O\u2019Keefe-McCarthy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving heart disease is not just the symptoms, but it\u2019s the meanings attached to the life-altering things that happen after having a heart attack,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Keefe-McCarthy says it is vital for people to be proactive rather than reactive; having the right information in advance will help them to do so.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t get the research out in meaningful ways to the right people at the right time, people are going to die, and that\u2019s not acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n