Your Heart
We have made these films very carefully with our NHS health care professionals and expert patients. All the information has been reviewed and signed off, but of course if you have any concerns you must contact your GP or consultant in the normal way. Otherwise explore below!
Blood Pressure & your arteries
In the capable hands of Dr Carl Brookes the Cardiologist, we head to a garage to help understand our blood pressure and what it means with the help of tyres, a car engine and an old bit of copper piping.
Measuring blood pressure
Ever found it hard to remember the difference between systolic and diastolic blood pressure? Ever got confused about the top number and the bottom number and tried to work out what they mean by searching the internet?! Dr Carl Brookes, Cardiologist takes us through it and lands the key points to remember so that we can better understand the readings and what it might mean for our health.
Understanding Cholesterol
A fatburg proves another useful tool in the bid to explain what cholesterol is and why some of it is called GOOD and some BAD. Until we made this film we found it hard to remember the difference between HDL and LDL but now it is firmly embedded in our minds plus the importance of exercise and eating purple vegetables (amongst other things of course). By film 3 we were starting to really understand how high blood pressure and cholesterol relate to each other and the importance of keeping an eye on them both.
Statins and Blood Pressure Tablets
If you find out that your blood pressure and cholesterol are high then there are ways of tackling it. Dr Carl Brookes looks at the tools in the toolbox for doing just that. We mostly know about lifestyle changes that we should make but there are medications that can support those changes. Understanding how they work might help to appreciate why they are prescribed and help us to prevent heart attacks and strokes.
What's Going On?
GP Dr Jane Gilbert explains what it means to have heart failure.
What Life Can Be Like
GP Dr Jane Gilbert explains what causes heart failure and suggests practical steps to understand how to manage symptoms, when to seek help and why exercise and diet is important.
More Severe Disease
We meet a patient who is managing his heart failure with medication and a pacemaker.
Adjusting
Dr Carl Brookes Cardiologist sees a patient with more severe heart failure who is addressing the psychological effects of having the disease.
Heart Failure And COPD
A story of support at home. Cardiac Specialist Nurse Sue Paterson makes a home visit to one of her patients.
Stop Smoking
You are 4 times more likely to be successful with expert help than going it alone.
Erectile Dysfunction
Erectile dysfunction CAN be an early warning sign of heart disease. Talk to your doctor! “The good news is that we can both manage the erectile dysfunction and obviously, hopefully stop you getting a heart attack or a stroke.”
Looking After People
A sensitively portrayed case study of an elderly man admitted to hospital showing how a patient can be kept comfortable at home or at hospital.
Healthy eating
Broken down into food groups, the film navigates healthy eating along the supermarket aisles and delivers some memorable nuggets of advice!