Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Sacred Heart Plans Miracle Camp Retreat for Young Sickle Cell Patients
Sacred Heart Health System’s Miracle Camp, Nemours Children’s Clinic and the Sickle Cell Association of Escarosa will offer a free one-day retreat for children and their families who are coping with sickle cell anemia.
Sickle Cell Family Field Day for children diagnosed with sickle cell anemia is planned for Saturday, Oct. 7, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Their families also may participate. The field day is designed to be a fun, engaging activity filled with activities, games, food, and arts and crafts.
Located in Escambia County on Beulah Road, Miracle Camp provides a premier camp and retreat center for chronically and/or terminally ill children and adults of all ages, as well as individuals who are physically and/or emotionally challenged, regardless of financial barriers or physical concerns. The Camp offers climate-controlled facilities, with a dormitory that sleeps up to 36 people, a dining hall, first aid/medical center, pool, fishing pond, a central campfire area, and more.
For more information about Sickle Cell Family Field Day and to make a reservation to attend, call Bambi Provost, director of Miracle Camp, at (850) 944-1677.
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Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Sacred Heart and Wal-Mart Team Up for Golf Tournament to Support Children’s Hospital
The sixth Annual Sacred Heart 2006 Fall Invitational to benefit Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital will be held Thursday, Oct. 26, at Solutia Golf Course in Cantonment. Sacred Heart is teaming up with the Northwest Florida Wal-Mart stores to offer this traditional fall invitational.
Registration for the tournament will begin at 11 a.m., followed by a putting contest at 11:30 a.m. Lunch is being provided and generously donated by Outback Steakhouse. The tournament will begin promptly at noon and awards will be presented at 5 p.m. Prizes for first, second and third places will be awarded, and door prizes will be given away. In addition, an automobile will be given to the first player who achieves a hole in one.
Cost is $100 per person or $400 per team, which includes greens fees, cart, range balls, goodie bag and food.
Last year this event raised $20,000. Over the past three years, the tournament has raised a total of $80,000 to benefit our community’s sick and injured children. This year, participants can help raise enough to exceed $100,000 in total giving. Registration forms can be picked up at Wal-Mart #1222 on Pensacola Boulevard, or call Joelle Kemp at Sacred Heart Foundation, (850) 416-4665, for a registration form or more information.
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Artists and Crafters Invited to Display at Sacred Heart Show on Oct. 6
Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola will host an Arts & Crafts Show on Friday, Oct. 6, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the hospital’s Conference Center on Ninth Avenue.
Artists and crafters are invited to sign up to display and sell their wares. Sacred Heart’s Associate Activities Team is sponsoring the event in support of Sacred Heart Health System’s Miracle Camp. No fee is required to reserve a booth; however, Sacred Heart asks that vendors make a donation to Miracle Camp from the profits they earn during the Arts & Crafts Show.
Miracle Camp, located on Beulah Road in Escambia County, gives children the opportunity to socialize with other kids coping with the same health concerns, renew their spirits, and enjoy some good, old-fashioned fun, from swimming and hiking to crafts and campfires.
To reserve a booth for the Arts & Crafts Show, or for more information, please contact Pam Kelly at 968-1174 or psck@aol.com.
Monday, September 25, 2006
"Less Invasive Procedure Treats Common Heart Defect
A team at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola led by Dr. Martha Stewart has performed a new non-surgical procedure to correct a common but potentially fatal heart defect (a “hole in the heart”) found in about 25 percent of adults.
Dr. Stewart, a cardiologist with Cardiology Consultants, used an implantable device that offers patients a less invasive alternative to open heart surgery. The new device, introduced through a thin catheter inserted into the veins. The physician then navigates the device to the location of the defect and closes or occludes the heart defect.
In the first case in the Pensacola area performed at Sacred Heart Regional Heart and Vascular Institute, Dr. Stewart and a cath lab team used the AMPLATZER occluder to close a gap or small hole in the wall (septum) between the heart’s upper chambers. The procedure prevents life-threatening blood clots from passing through the hole (called a patient foramen ovale or PFO).
This type of opening should close at birth or shortly afterward – as a newborn’s heart assumes normal function. When the hole stays open, circulatory disorders can occur and the condition may serve as a pathway for clots that can lead to a stroke.
The Food and Drug Administration has allowed the device to be implanted in patients with this heart defect when conventional drug therapy failed to prevent recurrent strokes. Patients diagnosed with PFO are typically treated with anticoagulant drugs to prevent or minimize blood clotting.
Despite medications, many patients eventually suffer recurrent strokes.
Patients for whom drug therapy did not work have faced the prospect of open heart surgery, requiring incisions through the breast bone and heart muscle, followed by surgical repair of the heart defect. Patients who have open heart surgery typically spend three to five days in the hospital and face a long post-operative recovery.
By comparison, patients treated with the septal occluder device avoid a large incision and generally leave the hospital within 24 hours. The new occluder device provides an effective new option for patients whose medical problems prevent them from undergoing major heart surgery. In clinical trials, the device had a closure success rate of more than 90 percent.
The device is made by AGA Medical Corp., the leading manufacturer of occlusion devices to allow minimally invasive treatment of several types of congenital heart defects, including atrial septal defect. For more information, visit www.amplatzer.com.
For more information on heart defects and heart disease, please see the link below to other consumer health information on our web site.
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Monday, September 18, 2006
New Treatment Offered for Irregular Heartbeat
(PENSACOLA, FL) – Sacred Heart Hospital is now providing a new surgical procedure to treat a potentially life-threatening heart rhythm known as atrial fibrillation.
A team of cardiovascular surgeons led by Dr. James Nielsen from Cardiology Consultants performed the area’s first cardiac ablation surgery done solely for atrial fibrillation – and without stopping the heart -- on August 30.
Atrial fibrillation is the most common heart rhythm disorder affecting more than 2.4 million Americans. Because of abnormal electrical activity, the upper chambers of the heart contract so rapidly and irregularly that it is difficult for the heart to beat effectively. The disease may endanger those with chaotic heart rhythm by triggering blood clots that can move to the brain, causing devastating strokes. About 15-20 percent of strokes occur in people with atrial fibrillation.
Using a new technology developed by St. Jude Medical, the new surgical approach uses a high intensity ultrasound device to safely treat irregular heartbeat without having to place the patient on a heart-lung bypass machine. The cardiac ablation procedure allows surgeons to heat targeted cardiac tissue to 176 degree Fahrenheit. As the probe is activated, it safely creates precise lines or scars in heart tissue without damaging nearby tissues. The procedure destroys specific heart muscle cells that transmit erratic heart rhythms.
Atrial fibrillation is a disease that increases in frequency and severity as patients grow older. For some people, the disorder causes no symptoms, while in others, it can cause:
• A racing or fluttering heart beat
• Dizziness or fainting
• Fatigue
• Shortness of breath.
“Atrial fibrillation is the result of misfiring electrical signals in the heart,” said Dr. William Bailey, a surgeon with Cardiology Consultants who practices at Sacred Heart Hospital. “The new procedure is a less invasive form of surgery and a new option for treating patients for whom medication is not successful, or who do not want to be on blood thinning medications for the rest of their lives.”
In addition to medications, there are other choices for treating atrial fibrillation, including electric shock, pacemakers and ablation procedures in which thin tubes called catheters are inserted into a blood vessel and directed to the heart. Energy is delivered to the arterial wall to destroy heart tissue that triggers abnormal electrical signals.
When medications or catheter procedures are not effective, the best alternative has been a difficult, open heart surgery known as the Cox-Maze procedure. That procedure is a major operation that requires surgeons to cut split the breastbone, put patients on a heard-lung bypass machine, and temporarily stop the heart. Because the open heart surgery carries higher risks for complications, it has typically been reserved only for patients who already needed major surgery to bypass clogged arteries or repair heart valves.
By comparison, the new cardiac ablation surgery involves a smaller incision and is performed on a beating heart – with no need for the heart-lung machine. Patients are able to go home in two or three days instead of seven days of more with the traditional open surgery.
“We are able to treat patients with reduced risk while also lowering their chances of having a stroke,” said Dr. James Lonquist, a cardiovascular surgeon with Cardiology Consultants who practices at Sacred Heart. “We expect this innovation will enable a larger population of patients to have surgical treatment solely for atrial fibrillation.”
Sacred Heart’s Regional Heart and Vascular Institute recently acquired the new device. Dr. Nielsen, Dr. Lonquist and Dr. Bailey are performing the procedure. They will be working with cardiologists to educate patients on the best options for treating the disease.
For more information about atrial fibrillation and procedures to correct heart rhythm disorders, call Sacred Heart at (850) 416-1600.
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Surgeon to Discuss Latest Weight-Loss Surgery Techniques Sept. 21
Surgeon to Discuss Latest Weight-Loss Surgery Techniques Sept. 21
Dr. Jeffrey L. Lord, a specialist in laparoscopic weight loss surgery, will present “Weight Loss Surgery: Is It Right for You?” on Thursday, Sept. 21, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Sacred Heart Hospital Conference Center in Pensacola.
The only board-certified bariatric surgeon in Northwest Florida with advanced fellowship training in weight loss surgery, Dr. Lord serves as director of the Sacred Heart Institute for Surgical Weight Loss. He has special expertise in minimally invasive surgical weight loss procedures.
Dr. Lord and the Institute for Surgical Weight Loss can perform two types of weight loss surgery that use small incisions. The first is laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery, which involves a permanent rerouting of the digestive system that leaves patients with a small stomach pouch. The surgery creates a bypass that reroutes food around a portion of the small intestine.”
The second, newer approach performed at Sacred Heart is adjustable gastric banding. Using a laparoscope, the surgeon places an inflatable band around the stomach, creating a small upper pouch at the top, with restricted passage to the rest of the stomach. This pouch fills quickly and creates a feeling of fullness.
Dr. Lord and his staff provide comprehensive evaluation of clinically obese patients to determine their candidacy for these life-changing procedures as well as extensive patient/family education to create a foundation for a healthy lifestyle.
Reservations are required for this free seminar. To make a reservation or to obtain more information, please call (850) 416-1628 or visit www.sacred-heart.org."
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Asthma and Allergies: Topic of Seniors’ Seminar
Sacred Heart Hospital’s Senior Services program will present a free seminar on asthma and allergies in Pensacola on Wednesday, Sept. 20, from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. in the Greenhut Auditorium on Sacred Heart’s Ninth Avenue campus.
The seminar, presented by Dr. John Bray, a board-certified pulmonologist, will help attendees understand the signs and symptoms of asthma, the effects that allergies can have on asthma, and treatment options.
Registration is required and seating is limited. To register, call (850) 416-1620 or 1-877-416-1620.
This seminar is part of the monthly series of free health education programs sponsored by Sacred Heart SeniorSpirit. Sacred Heart SeniorSpirit is a free program for persons 55 and older. Benefits include free screenings, seminars, special in-patient benefits such as a free daily guest meal ticket and newspaper delivery, a monthly calendar of events detailing all SeniorSpirit events, and a quarterly newsletter containing health and event information.
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Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Minimally Invasive Joint Replacement Topic of Seminar in Pace
Sacred Heart Hospital’s Senior Services’ program will present a free seminar on minimally invasive hip and knee replacement in seniors on Tuesday, Sept. 12, from 12 to 1 p.m. in the Rehabilitation Clinic at Sacred Heart Medical Park in Pace.
The seminar will presented by Dr. Mark Caylor, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon. The talk will help attendees decide if joint replacement surgery is right for them.
Registration is required and seating is limited. To register, call (850) 416-1620 or 1-877-416-1620.
Sacred Heart Medical Park at Pace provides diagnostic services and rehabilitation services to the Pace community, as well as family practice, OB/GYN and other specialty physicians’ offices. The facility is open Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., and is located on the north side of U.S. 90 in Pace, between Woodbine Road and Chumuckla Highway.
Sacred Heart’s SeniorSpirit is a free program for persons 55 and older. Benefits include free screenings, seminars, special in-patient benefits such as a free daily guest meal ticket and newspaper delivery, a monthly calendar of events detailing all SeniorSpirit events, and a quarterly newsletter containing health and event information.
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