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Nurse consultant outlines way forward in heart disease prevention
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By Regina Selman
Get up and get moving!
That's the message Patricia Comoss, a nurse consultant
specialising in cardiac rehabilitation, wants to leave with Barbadians from all
walks of life. Comoss, who hails from Pennsylvania, USA, and who works with
Nursing Enrichment Consultants, has added her voice to a call for Barbadians to
lead healthier lifestyles, as a means of preventing cardiac events.
"Too many people are inactive and while everybody hears the
message that you are suppose to be more active, I don't know that most people
buy into it. If there is one thing that people can do for cardiac prevention, it
is to quit smoking, but assuming that they have already done that or they were
never a smoker, the next thing that they need to do is start moving. And I think
that not enough people do enough of that. Moving around on the job is not
enough. It's got to be purposeful, structured exercise or activity beyond what
they do in their everyday jobs".
"Of course the other piece is healthy eating, which is a
constant struggle for people; fresh fruits, fish and vegetables primarily,
watching the fats and fries, which is hard in our population" Comoss outlined.
Comoss spoke to the Barbados Advocate while at the
headquarters of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Barbados, to facilitate day
two of a three day "Nursing Enrichment Consultants Educational Course for Rehab
Nurses". The purpose of such a course of training she said, is to keep nurses
abreast, update and on track with new developments and research in the specialty
area of cardiac rehabilitation.
"What we are doing is, we are teaching them what they need
to know and do, to work in the field called cardiac rehabilitation. Basically
what that includes, is an emphasis on how to exercise cardiac patients and how
to educate cardiac patients".
"Purpose number one is to educate the nurses to do the best
service for cardiac rehab. Purpose number two is to help assess the status of
the programme, so that we can find an opportunity to update and upgrade the
programme, to keep it on the cutting edge of what's is going on in the field of
cardiac rehab, because it is still quite a specialty field" she stressed.
Comoss added that while there is a lot of research in the
field, looking at how effective programme is, she hopes to collect data on the
programme carried out in Barbados, and to report on the accomplishments of the
programme here, over time.
Published Barbados Advocate
Thursday February 14, 2008
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