Heart & Artery Screening
Cardiovascular disease can start as early as your 20s, and in NZ this kills one person every 90 minutes. You can greatly reduce your risk with a simple, proactive 20 minute consultation.
Our Service with Cardiaction
1 in 3 deaths in NZ are caused by cardiovascular disease. While this is usually a combination of genetics and lifestyle, approximately 75% of premature cardiovascular disease can be preventable by understanding the health of your heart and arteries. Find out your real-time risk in store.
What is a heart and artery screening?
At Huapai Pharmacy we use Cardiaction - an innovative new heart screening and management app, that's designed to make heart and artery health easy to improve and manage. Through this screen it is possible to identify signs of cardiovascular disease, and utilising the right interventions, you can greatly reduce your risk of heart attack or stroke.
Why do I need one?
Cardiovascular disease is the number 1 cause of death in NZ for both men and women, but did you know that approx. 75% of premature cardiovascular disease is preventable? This pain free and non invasive screening allows you to understand your personal risk and what you can do to keep your heart healthy.
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What is a Pulse Wave Analysis (PWA)?
PWA machines analyse the shape of the pulse wave generated by the heart and work very similarly to a traditional blood pressure test. While traditional tests monitor the brachial blood pressure, a PWA test is able to monitor the central systolic pressure –the central blood pressure that affects the internal organs, a more accurate indicator of heart health.
Cardiaction is
pain-fee,
non-invasive, and results are available in minutes
Maybe the most important 20 minutes of your life
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Real-time insight of your heart and artery health
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Identify the unidentified
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Receive a personalised corrective action plan
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Track progress on the CardiAction app
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Pain free and non-invasive
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Convenient – available by booking an appointment with us, at a time that suits you
What does a CardiAction heart screen involve?
Test
A simple test using a Pulse Wave Analysis (PWA) machine. This provides detail on the vital biomarkers that reflect how healthy your heart and arteries are, and include:
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Arterial stiffness/resistance and the augmentation pressure
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Central systolic pressure
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Ejection duration
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Heart rate, rhythm and pulse pressure
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Oxygenation of the heart muscle
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Review
We'll review your results with you, and discuss what this means for you. This includes your potential risk of cardiovascular disease in line with CardiAction Target Ranges (CTRs). We can email this to you, and you can download the Cardiaction app to easily access, track and monitor your results ongoing.
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02
Test
Based on your results, you'll be provided with personalised recommendations to support ongoing maintenance and improvement for your cardiovascular health, in targeted areas. This takes into consideration both a natural health and pharmaceutical approach - nutrition, exercise, lifestyle and medicinal options, as well as referring to your GP with details of your test results if needed.
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Retest
After following your action plan, book a follow up PWA test and see the improvements you have made. It is never too late to improve your cardiovascular health, and it is possible to see a risk reduction in as little as two months.
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A few facts to be aware of
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Conventional testing and algorithms pick up 50% of those at risk. A PWA test can pick up an extra 25-35% but we are still missing the others. Some of these risks can be linked to strong genetic issues or infections and will not be identified by this technology.​
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The results of the machine can vary (very similarly to how your blood pressure can vary depending on real time factors such as recent foods, stress, caffeine levels, etc). We will give you more than one PWA to rule out any anomaly results.
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Please note that this test is for screening purposes only. We are not able to diagnose you with any medical conditions but if you have any further concerns, we encourage you to take your results to your doctor.