What does stemi stand for in medical terms

If a person calls for an ambulance, the paramedics will usually perform this heart tracing and transmit it to Royal Columbian Hospital to be read by a doctor. If a person goes into the emergency room for medical help, then the electrocardiogram will be done when they arrive.

There are four possibilities for treatment of a heart attack. Which treatment you receive will depend on the results of your tests, and will be discussed between you and your heart doctor or cardiologist.

First, we look for where the blockage is located. This procedure is called an angiogram. Then, in most cases, we open the blocked artery with a procedure called percutaneous coronary intervention PCI , which is an angioplasty with a stent. A heart specialist called a cardiologist does these procedures.

Once we locate the block, the next step is to open the blockage. Usually, we do this by inserting a small hollow balloon with a small metal tube called a stent.

We open the stent at the site of the blockage. This allows blood to flow to the heart muscle. Most often when a person has a heart attack , there is a blood clot blocking blood flow in the heart arteries. Sometimes, the doctor will recommend a special clot-busting drug to be given.

This may be done in addition to percutaneous coronary intervention or may be instead of percutaneous coronary intervention. The clot-busting drug breaks up all clots in the body including the one that is blocking the heart artery. For this reason, patients are prone to bleeding. Your doctor will screen you carefully to determine if you can safely have this clot-busting drug. Some people do not need to have a percutaneous coronary intervention or thrombolysis.

Your doctor may suggest medications to help with any symptoms that you may have. After that, the longer it takes to unblock the artery, the more damage there will be. Once the acute phase of treatment is over and the blocked artery is reopened, there is still a lot that has to be done to stabilize the heart, and to reduce the odds of another heart attack. Did you know the most common forms of heart disease are largely preventable?

Our guide will show you what puts you at risk, and how to take control of your heart health. ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction.

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These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. We and our partners process data to: Actively scan device characteristics for identification. I Accept Show Purposes. There are several approaches to reopening an arterial obstruction: Thrombolytic therapy involves the use of clot-busting drugs.

Stenting involves the insertion of a mesh tube to reopen the artery. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Sign Up. What are your concerns? Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Related Articles. June 24, Electrocardiogram with ST-segments elevated.

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