Increased Quality of Life
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External Counter Pulsation increases the blood flow to the heart through sequential compression of the lower extremities of the body in synchronization with a patient's electrocardiogram. This therapy has proven to be useful in the treatment of heart attacks (myocardial infarction), cardiogenic shock, angina and congestive heart failure.
Clinical experience indicates that patients have demonstrated improvement after external counter pulsation treatment such as:
- Less recurrent chest pain
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Less ventricular fibrillation
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Reduction or elimination of shock symptoms
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Decrease in heart size
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Less progression to cardiac failure
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Afterload reduction
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Increased quality of life
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Decreased mortality rates
Published studies* have demonstrated total relief from angina pain and elimination or a significant reduction of the ischemic (oxygen deprived) areas of the heart in approximately 78% of stable angina patients.
* Lawson et.al., 1995, 1996, 2000
In a paper* published in March of 2001 in a peer reviewed journal, none of the 58 patients studied died or suffered a major cardiac event. Canadian Cardiovascular Society Functional Classification System ("CCSF") classification showed improvement in all three CCSF groups. For the entire group of 58 patients, CCSF class was reduced from 2.67 to 1.71 (36%). Overall, 84% of the patients (49 of 58) experienced a reduction in their CCSF class. In addition, 91% of the patients experienced a reduction in their anginal episodes per 24 hour period post-treatment. Of the 24 patients who had been hospitalized in the six months prior to treatment, only one (4%) required hospitalization in the six month period after treatment. Medication consumption also decreased 77.4%. The paper concluded that CardiAssistT ECP significantly reduces CCSF angina class, the incidence of anginal episodes, hospitalization for angina and anti-anginal medication use.
* Weisfogel et.al.2001