Fitting into a pair of tight jeans may be pretty painful but a new kind of pants suggested for particular heart patients may in fact squeeze back and offer some pain relief. It is known as enhanced external counter pulsation (EECP).
The outpatient therapy utilizes three sets of blood pressure-like cuffs draped around the legs and buttocks that apparently blow up and deflate with the patient’s heartbeat. The squeezing action may augment blood flow and oxygen to the heart and other organs, thereby frequently decreasing or even getting rid of symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath and exhaustion.
For the therapy to be given, patients need to lie down on a special table that appears to lodge the unit’s pump. Apparently, they stay on that table for one hour while the cuffs or pants press their lower body with every heartbeat. A complete itinerary of EECP therapy supposedly needs patients to be given these treatments every day for roughly seven weeks.
Numerous studies have illustrated that around 75 to 80 percent of patients finishing a course of therapy may undergo instant and considerable decrease in their symptoms and enhancement in their activity levels. For most of these patients, the benefits appear to continue for over two years.
EECP therapy is said to be usually prescribed for patients with chest pain i.e. angina due to inadequate blood supply to the heart muscle i.e. ischemia owing to of a tapering of, or obstructions in, the coronary arteries. EECP is believed to be an established, noninvasive treatment that seems to be FDA-approved as a secure and effectual substitute or addition to heart bypass surgery and balloon angioplasty in specific patients. This study apparently demonstrates that this therapy may be advantageous for patients suffering from hard-to-treat disease and ischemia.
Penn State Hershey Heart and Vascular Institute supposedly provide this novel treatment at its Penn State Hershey Medical Group.