Prevention Services at VCS

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death for both men and women. Approximately 80 million adults have one or more types of cardiovascular disease.

Although you may be unable to control some of the major risk factors such as age and family history, there are still things you can do! We recommend that you adopt these heart friendly changes in your lifestyle to decrease your odds of developing cardiovascular disease:

• · Get Active
• · Eat a heart healthy diet
• · Do not smoke
• · Maintain a healthy weight
• · See your primary care doctor on a regular basis, share your family history, and have regular blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes screenings.

VCS physicians believe in preventing heart disease just as strongly as they believe in diagnosing and treating it. Early identification of cardiovascular disease plays an important role in prevention. It gives you and your primary care doctor valuable information to develop a lifestyle and treatment plan, if necessary.

VCS has proven its commitment to prevention by being early adaptors of technology that has saved countless lives over the last several years. "We believe we have improved the process to identify cardiovascular disease," says Dr. Shelton Thomas of VCS. "As a direct result of our screenings, many patients will realize benefits five to ten years from now. They will have received treatment early on, made 'heart friendly' changes in their lifestyles, and their odds of cardiovascular disease will have decreased significantly."

The CT Heart Scan and VascularView can find "hidden" heart and vascular disease before you have symptoms or an unwanted heart attack or stroke.