Health Management for Older Adults III - Early Evaluation of Patients with Chest Pain -- The Goal

< i > Early Evaluation of Patients with Chest Pain -- The Goal

The Goal for the physician when evaluating the patient with chest pain is to determine whether the patient's symptoms are due to myocardial ischemia, myocardial infarction, non-cardiac chest pain or chest pain of uncertain etiology.

Unfortunately there is no simple formula that a physician can use to ensure accuracy of diagnosis in all cases early on after presentation.

However, several points should be made that will help discriminate cardiac from non-cardiac etiologies of chest pain.