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

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

First is "The Story." The story is still quite important. By that I mean not only the patient's story about the quality of chest pain, location, intensity, duration, etc. but also the gender of the patient, the age of the patient and whether or not they have other risk factors, such as previous myocardial infarction, previous angioplasty, or previous coronary bypass surgery.

For example if a patient has recurrent chest pain with exertion relieved by rest and sublingual nitroglycerin or has an acute onset of prolonged substernal crushing chest pain, the likelihood is that this patient has myocardial ischemia or infarction.