Explain the signs and symptoms related to Heart Disease and Breast Cancer. Assess possible difficulties involved in the diagnosis of the disorders from their signs and symptoms.
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Introduction
Unit 14: Physiological Disorders. P2/M1: Explain the signs and symptoms related to these two disorders. Assess possible difficulties involved in the diagnosis of the disorders from their signs and symptoms. The main symptom of coronary heart disease is angina which can be caused by insufficient oxygen reaching the heart muscle because of reduced blood flow; this can lead to mild, uncomfortable pain within the centre of your chest which can relate to that of indigestion, however no severe damage is caused by an angina attack. The pain from this type of attack can spread to other parts of the body including the arms, neck, jaws, back or stomach. Symptoms usually don?t last longer than 10 minutes and are triggered by physical activity or stress. (http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Coronary-heart-disease/Pages/Symptoms.aspx, accessed 10 Oct. 2012) An arrhythmia is a problem with the rate or rhythm of the heartbeat. When you have an arrhythmia, you may notice that your heart is skipping beats or beating too fast. ...read more.
Middle
This can include looking out for changes in the breast such as lumps or thickening of the tissue, any flaking skin or discharge from the nipple, 'tethering' of the skin, as if it's being pulled from the inside, any unusual sensation or discomfort, a change in outline, shape or size of the breast, a lump or swelling in either of your armpits, dimpling on the skin of your breasts, a rash on or around your nipple. (http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Cancer-of-the-breast-female/Pages/Symptoms.aspx, 01 Oct 2012) M1 There are many Possible difficulties that can be involved in the diagnosis of Coronary heart disease, I will be talking about these below. Even though an ECG is an important test for detecting heart problems, it isn?t advisable to have an ECG done every year. There are two reasons for this. The first is that there isn?t yet evidence that routine screening actually improves long-term health outcomes. Second, ECGs provide too many false-positive tests, especially in women, leading to unnecessary additional tests and too many false-negative tests which lead to missed abnormalities. ...read more.
Conclusion
Most of the women asked back for further tests won?t have breast cancer. One or two mammograms to be taken again for various reasons including the following; The x-ray picture is blurred and cannot be read by the doctor; There is some kind of equipment failure, for example the machine that processes the x-ray films breaks down however this is very rare; The mammogram misses part of the breast and it needs to be retaken so that the whole breast can be seen. Although mammography is the most effective and reliable way of detecting breast cancer early, it is not perfect. A breast cancer may not be detected by mammogram because some cancers are very difficult to see on the x-ray, some cancers, even though they are there, cannot be seen on the x-ray at all, the person reading the x-ray may miss the cancer. This will happen occasionally, no matter how experienced the person reading the x-ray is. To reduce the risk of a cancer being missed all mammograms are looked at by two people. (http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Cancerinformation/Testsscreening/Breastscreening/Difficulties.aspx#.UICGQvnuXrE, accessed 01 Oct 2012) ...read more.
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