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Deadly heart attacks are more common on a Monday

(www.bhf.org.uk)
239 points giuliomagnifico | 1 comments | 06 Jun 23 13:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.924s | source
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lukko ◴[06 Jun 23 15:36 UTC] No.36214465[source]▶
I definitely felt Mondays on-call were much busier in the hospital. I always thought this could be due to patients spending weekends with family, not wanting to cause a fuss and maybe ignoring symptoms of cardiac chest pain until it evolves into a serious heart attack (STEMI). Also, they may be waiting to see their GP on Monday morning and then get referred to hospital (although less likely with STEMIs).

I also remember the time between Christmas and New Year being very busy - I thought for a similar reason - people understandably just don't want to be in hospital for Christmas.

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CoastalCoder ◴[06 Jun 23 15:43 UTC] No.36214579[source]▶
I wonder if modern smartphones lay the groundwork for people knowing they're on the cusp of a heart attack.

E.g., using sensors that are cheap, and are less invasive than EKG electrodes. Kinda like the way Apple watches can now continuously monitor stuff

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dividedbyzero ◴[06 Jun 23 15:50 UTC] No.36214689[source]▶
Does an Apple Watch actually tell you if you are?
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Aeolun ◴[06 Jun 23 16:06 UTC] No.36214885[source]▶
It monitors for atrial fibrilation using a single leak EKG I think.

It is very clear about the fact it cannot detect a heart attack though.

Then there’s these slightly more sophisticated things: https://store.kardia.com/products/kardiamobile6l

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1. WWLink ◴[06 Jun 23 18:36 UTC] No.36217200[source]▶
The "very clear about the fact it cannot detect a heart attack" thing is so obnoxious that it actually kinda breaks that app. If you got a messy/noisy EKG reading and want to do it again, you have to carefully scrooll to the bottom of the page and click done. Or you accidentally tap the large grey box at the top that takes you to a multi-page legal explanation of how it's not meant to detect a heart attack - and that page has a teeny tiny button at the top left to take you back to the last page.