Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Karen Sandler has a big heart. And that's not just because she is head of the Gnome Foundation - a non-profit community group dedicated to making and giving away free software for PCs.
She has an enlarged heart thanks to an inherited medical condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) that makes the walls of her heart very thick so the organ is bigger and stiffer than normal. It also puts her at risk of sudden death.
Every year, she said, there is a 2-3% chance that her heart would stop beating. The risk is cumulative so the older she gets the greater her chance of HCM proving fatal. Thankfully, medical science can head off the growing threat it poses.
Dealing with HCM involves implanting a defibrillator that will shock the heart into activity if it stops working.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17631838
She has an enlarged heart thanks to an inherited medical condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) that makes the walls of her heart very thick so the organ is bigger and stiffer than normal. It also puts her at risk of sudden death.
Every year, she said, there is a 2-3% chance that her heart would stop beating. The risk is cumulative so the older she gets the greater her chance of HCM proving fatal. Thankfully, medical science can head off the growing threat it poses.
Dealing with HCM involves implanting a defibrillator that will shock the heart into activity if it stops working.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17631838