Riverside Healthcare | The Journey | Summer 2021

Summer 2021 11 Check in with a doctor. Ask your children’s doctor if they should be screened with blood pressure, blood glucose, cholesterol or body mass index (BMI) tests. These offer clues about heart disease risk. Find time to eat together. Frequent family meals promote healthier eating and healthy weight. Don’t insist on a clean plate. Allow your children to stop eating when full. Emphasize healthy foods. Make fast food the exception, not the rule. And cook heart-friendly foods at home. Increase fruits and vegetables. They help with weight and blood pressure control. Make a menu change. Remove saturated fat, excess sodium and added sugar from your family’s menu when possible. Live by example. Kids pay attention to what you eat—as well as how much you exercise and whether you engage in habits like smoking that are unhealthy for the heart. Add active toys to the toy box. Think a jump rope, a soccer ball or inline skates—with the recommended safety gear. Prioritize play. Fit at least one hour of physical activity into your children’s daily schedule. It could be active playtime or something more organized—anything to get your kids moving. Plan some family fun. Ask everyone to set aside time during the week and on weekends for fun family fitness. You might all go for a bike ride, for example. Cheer your children on. Find a sport or active pursuit your children enjoy, like swimming. Then provide opportunities for your kids to participate. Issue family fitness challenges. For instance, see who can do the most situps during a TV commercial. Restrict screen time. Set limits for each child to balance media use with other healthy behaviors. Sources: American Academy of Pediatrics; American Heart Association study Take this test to heart “This can result in cardiac arrest. If your heart beats irregularly, blood can pool in the upper chambers of the heart. When this happens, blood clots can form. And those blood clots can travel, causing a stroke.” Q How does an EPS work? A: This test creates a road map of all the electrical signals your heart produces during each heartbeat. “We can use this information to see where an arrhythmia is coming from,” says Brad Suprenant, DO, FACC, FACOI, at Riverside Heart & Vascular Institute. “You’ll be mildly sedated and receive a local anesthetic. Then electrode catheters will be threaded into your heart. These electrodes let us send electrical signals to your heart and record its activity.” Q What can my doctor do with the information from an EPS? A: An EPS can help diagnose specific kinds of arrhythmia, especially tachycardia (fast heart rate) and bradycardia (slow heart rate). The data can help you and your doctor decide what treatment may be right for you. Prescribed treatment may be medication, a pacemaker or an implantable cardioverter defibrillator. Cardiac ablation and surgery are options too. Q Do I need an EPS? A: You can request an appointment on MyChart or by searching for an electrophysiology provider at RiversideHealthcare.org/ providers . You can also call the Riverside Heart & Vascular Institute at 888-368-8986 . Have you heard of the world’s smallest pacemaker? Brad Suprenant, DO, introduces the mighty Micra. Listen to the podcast at RiversideHealthcare.org/podcasts . Abhimanyu Beri, MD Brad Suprenant, DO, FACC, FACOI