Baton Rouge, LA (NBC 33/Fox 44)
We’re taking a closer look at atrial fibrillation and the benefits of a device used to treat it. It’s the Watchman Device.
As we’ve mentioned, it’s a quarter sized, one-time implant doctors use in a certain part of the heart, to help patients with a-fib- which are chaotic heart rhythms–avoid a stroke.
“When that blood slows down in there and cause the blood clot, the blood clot can move,” according to CIS Interventional Cardiologist Dr. Garland Green. “When it moves, it usually goes to the brain and causes a stroke, which has a lot of very deleterious affects as we all know.”
According to Dr. Green, use of the watchman device also means patients with a-fib are no longer tied to blood thinners. Until very recently, they were a patient’s only option.
“We always talk about mortality. But there’s also a morbidity thing, Dr. Green told us. “Morbidity means the quality of your life. What happens with folks on long term blood thinners is that they develop bleeding issues.
Experts say a person won’t necessarily die from this bleeding, but it can cause a lot of complications.
Green says, “We want to make sure we can minimize those sympstoms as much as we can.”
For more information on the Watchman Device and other treatments in the CIS Structural Heart Program, contact them here.
