February is Heart Health Month!

FEBRUARY IS HEART HEALTH AWARENESS MONTH

Phillips Clinic is a team of professionals dedicated to providing the very best in medical treatment to ensure patient well-being. 

Our staff’s commitment to continuing professional education is evident as the Clinic strives to stay on the cutting edge of new traditional and non-traditional medical techniques and new       practices in the health care field. 

Our professional staff is proud to offer the    following comprehensive heart health testing   services at one convenient location:

EKG

An EKG is a test that records the electrical activity of your heart through small electrode patches that are 

attached to the skin of your chest, arms, and legs.

EKGs are quick, safe, and painless. With this test, your doctor will be able to:

Check your heart rhythm

See if you have poor blood flow to your heart muscle (this is called ischemia)

Diagnose a heart attack

Check on things that are abnormal, such as thickened heart muscle

ECHOCARDIOGRAM

An echocardiogram (echo=sound + card=heart + gram=drawing) is an ultrasound test that can evaluate the structures of the heart, as well as the direction of blood flow within it. 

Technicians specially trained in echocardiography produce the images and videos, often using a special probe or transducer that is placed in various places on the chest wall, to view the heart from different directions. 

Cardiologists, or heart specialists, are trained to evaluate these images to assess heart function and provide a report of the results. The echocardiogram is one of the many tests that can be done to evaluate heart anatomy and function.

PERIPHERAL 

VASCULAR TESTING

These are non-invasive tests that check the blood flow in your arteries and veins. Vascular studies use high-frequency sound waves (ultrasound) to measure the amount of blood flow in your blood vessels. Treadmill tests are also done at Phillips Clinic Family Practice 

DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. The DASH diet is a lifelongapproach to healthy eating that's designed to help treat or prevent high blood pressure (hypertension). 

The DASH diet plan was developed to lower blood pressure without medication in research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

The DASH diet encourages you to reduce the sodium in your diet and eat a variety of

foods rich in nutrients that help lower blood pressure, such as potassium, calcium and magnesium.

The DASH Diet

Because the DASH diet is a healthy way of eating, it offers health benefits besides just lowering blood pressure. The DASH diet is also in line with dietary recommendations to prevent osteoporosis, cancer, heart disease, stroke and diabetes.