Hollywood portrayals of heart attacks misleading: Researchers

New Delhi, July 13 (IANS) Do not follow Hollywood movies on how people get heart attacks, researchers have warned, saying that the portrayals of someone clutching their chest and collapsing dramatically are misleading and shouldn’t be expected.

Ann Eckhardt, a nursing professor and researcher at The University of Texas at Arlington in the US said that ‘The Hollywood Heart Attack’, unfortunately, is not real life.

“It’s not always intense. Sometimes it’s just discomfort that doesn’t feel quite right, so people tend to wait to see a doctor. The longer you wait, the more likely you are to have negative consequences after your heart attack,” Eckhardt said in an article published in the journal Heart & Lung.

Eckhardt and her colleagues are working to set the record straight by first understanding how the public perceives chest pain.

The team explored the common misconceptions about heart attack symptoms.

Many patients don’t experience the dramatic, big-screen version of a heart attack. Instead, symptoms can be complex and even mild. Another widespread myth, the researchers note, is that heart attacks look drastically different in men versus women.

“We used to say men have typical symptoms and women have atypical symptoms,” Eckhardt said. “We’re trying very hard to move away from that language now. The most common symptom for men and women is chest-related. We created confusion by saying women are somehow completely different.”

Changing public perception isn’t easy, but it’s a mission that drives Eckhardt and her colleagues. Three years ago, she helped develop the “Chest Pain Conception Questionnaire” to help determine how everyday people view heart attacks.

The study revealed that nearly 75 per cent of respondents had consumed heart attack information through sources like TV or movies, highlighting the need for clearer, more accurate educational materials on chest pain and related symptoms.

“We often tell people chest pain is a symptom of a heart attack, but what we don’t tell them is what they might actually feel,” Eckhardt said. “For a lot of people, it’s not pain in the traditional sense. It’s more discomfort, pressure, tightness. They just don’t feel quite right, but they can’t really put their finger on it.”

That uncertainty often causes people to delay seeking medical attention.

“The longer you wait, the more likely it is you’ll have irreversible damage to the heart,” Eckhardt said. “So, if we can determine what people think a heart attack will be like, perhaps we can help the medical community better triage and ask questions. It’s not just ‘Are you having chest pain?’; it’s also ‘Do you have any discomfort, pressure, tightness, squeezing?’”

—IANS

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