hello massage nurse today i'm going to be talking about the cardiovascular pathologies
i will be talking about anemia angina pectoris atherosclerosis congestive heart failure
coronary artery disease and deep vein thrombosis so let's start with anemia
and there are different types some that are not as dangerous and some of them that are
so let me remind you again that anything with anemia has to do with a blood with the blood
because blood is what carries oxygen to your tissues to your brain to every cell in your body
so anemia is the reduction of the quantity and quality of either the red blood cells or the
hemoglobin and red blood cells carry hemoglobin which is the oxygen cells are the red the red
cells are formed in the bone marrow the red bone marrow and once they leave the bone they
lose their nucleus and the reason they lose their nucleus is to create more surface area
to carry the um the hemoglobin so uh it makes them very floppy too you know they look like a little
floppy disk flexible enough that they can fold in half to go in through the capillaries because the
capillaries are very very tiny so uh red blood cells you know carry oxygen throughout all your
body the lifespan of a red blood cell is like 120 days and once they're start you know falling
apart they go to the spleen to get recycled so let me talk about the different types of anemia
the least dangerous one is the um nutrition anemia actually 3.5 million of americans
at one time or another have anemia and that's usually the one where the doctors
give you an iron deficiency tablet and tell you to eat more beans and more spinach and
anything that's high in iron another deficiency would be the folic acid or pernicious anemia
those two are vitamin b deficiency a pernicious is vitamin b12 in specific and the other one i
think is um vitamin b3 the folic acid now the more dangerous one is the sickle cell anemia and
that sickle cell anemia is hereditary children are born with it they get it from their parents
and this is where the red blood cells look like sickles they have real jagged edges they're not
soft and pliable and these sickles you know get stuck they can't pass through the you know through
the capillaries and into your cells so this is um this is more dangerous there's no cure for it so
make sure that when your client comes in that you do a good medical history
then they will tell you most clients when they do have something they do
let you know so just find out which one it is oh aplastic anemia is where
uh your red bull marrow is not producing any you know um blood red or white blood cells so
that's also a dangerous one um if they have the regular anemia nutrition anemia there's really
no contraindications for the massage with the other ones there might be because they feel more
they can feel lightheaded very fatigued you know just exhausted they might not be able to lay
either completely flat supine or in the head rest you know with their head you know down you
might need to lift the head rest a little bit so just make sure to do a good medical history and
accommodate to your clients needs and like i said if it's just the normal nutrition anemia there's
really not a lot of precautions that you need to take so next would be angina pectoris which is a
chest pain from the temporary blood flow to the heart these people there's there's different
types and some of them the mild the mild one is can be triggered by emotional stress or exertion
somebody that's been working out or a sudden drop in and also in temperature can cause it and acute
coronary syndrome you know that's a little bit worse that's that often signals uh you know uh
myocardial infarction which is another fancy name for a heart attack and usually people uh with
these with this type of condition they carry the nitroglycerin where they can put it under their
tongue nitroglycerin is a vassal dilator so it opens up their you know their arteries and their
blood flow to get more blood flow to their to their um you know to their brain into their to
their cells so sometimes you know it's spasms of the coronary arteries so it spasms and it triggers
pain so there's also a muscle you know right here where a lot of people might think they're having
you know angina but it's really you know the pectoralis you know right around this area that
so find out you know make sure a lot of times it's nothing however if they have been diagnosed
by a doctor you know it can be pretty scary so i'm not trying to scare you but just find out
next is the atherosclerosis and that's plaque within the arteries that restrict the blood
flow and it can you know block the the veins and arteries and it can cause blood clots it's usually
associated with high blood pressure and related to other diseases like diabetes like an angina
pectoris so you know you wanna again ask your client for their you know in their medical history
and how they're feeling like that day usually these massages are tailored to the client and
it's usually a 3 out of a 10 in pressure depending like i said if it's just if they're being treated
by a doctor and they have no symptoms at the time then you can go ahead and give them a normal
regular massage but if they're having any issues make sure you find out exactly what it is
so the next one is congestive heart failure and that's the heart's inability to pump blood through
your whole body system you know uh their heart is weak and i'll remind you guys again the heart is a
muscle just like your biceps your triceps your you know your rectus abdominis you want to work it out
this is where you know exercise is is cardio exercises and is important to get your heart
pumping to get it to be strong for when you need it so it can pump blood throughout your you know
throughout your system uh congestive uh heart failure is a syndrome associated with all other
diseases too like high blood pressure diabetes if they've had a previous heart attack you know
they're usually on medicaid or medication associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease also so you want to make sure and find out if that day they're fatigued and they're not
feeling well you might want to postpone the the massage you know i did have a client
that had the congestive heart failure and he just really wanted massage on his back
and that was great because it really made him feel more comfortable uh it didn't tax his body so much
because his was pretty advanced so you know it just depends on your client and if they're not
feeling well guys it's better to postpone the massage than to have a chance of them
you know really feeling awful on your table and that can be you know like i said kind of scary
so the next is coronary artery disease and that's the atherosclerosis in the actual uh plaque in
the coronary artery so your your heart has its own blood flow you know your heart has its own
arteries so you know that that supplies just the heart not all over your body but supplies just the
heart so coronary artery disease is the plaque inside those uh arteries of the heart and they
are they have you know they narrow and they can create backflow you know to the heart especially
the left ventricle the left ventricle is the one that pumps the blood to the aorta so the aorta
can carry the oxygenated blood all through your system remember arteries carry oxygenated blood
and veins carry deoxygenated blood back to the heart so the left ventricle is affected a lot
of times with a coronary artery disease and it it's just backflows and it starts backflowing
sometimes into your liver the blood into your liver and um you know into your lungs so
it can create ischemia remember ischemia it's a lack of blood flow to the area so it can have
scarring and you know it's not like i said these are medical diagnosis your client will know they
have it when they come in and you treat it again you treat it the same way as any of the other ones
usually you want to give a massage like a 3 out of a 10 if they're having you know if they're not
feeling well otherwise if they give you the okay and they have the okay from the doctor to get a
regular you know uh massage then you know you can proceed with that all of all of these you know
one of the benefits of massages that it reduces anxiety it reduces you know their blood pressure
if they have high a lot of these are affected by high blood pressure so massage reduces the the
blood pressure and it also you know um slows down the sympathetic nervous system so they go more
into a rest and digest parasympathetic nervous system you know it stimulates that so massage
is very beneficial to all of this okay deep vein thrombosis this is inflammation of the vein and
if you guys remember from you know from studying the cardiovascular system is veins have one-way
valves because veins are carrying deoxygenated blood to the right atrium and the right ventricle
and then to the pulmonary system to ex drop off the carbon dioxide and pick up oxygen and then
take it to the you know left atrium and then left ventriculum from the left ventricle to the
aorta so veins the deep vein thrombosis creates inflammation within the vein uh
usually you know along like the valves the little valves that prevent the the blood
from you know flowing back down just to keep it from uh backflow and a lot of times these form
clots they it attracts inflammation attracts platelets and so these create um blood clots and
one of the contraindications for massage is if they do have a blood clot and you'll be
able to tell if there's a lot of pain if there's redness if there's uh swelling and inflammation
and you know you you want to stay away from that area and if they do have severe pain and it's very
hot to the touch they usually happen on the legs more common are on the legs blood clots do and you
don't want to dislodge that with a massage so you wanna that's a contraindication you do not
give them a massage you refer them to their doctor because if you dislodge that you know that blood
clot it could go to the you know to their lungs so you don't wanna do that and um another thing is
there might be on blood thinners you know people that have previous uh that have you know deep vein
thrombosis they usually are on blood thinners so they bruise easier you want to make sure
and find out what medications with all of them actually with all of them you want to make sure
find out what medications they're on because even baby aspirin is a blood thinner so if they are on
a blood thinner you want to go lighter again a 3 out of a 10 especially on their limbs and
you know um blood clots i remember many years ago i used to think blood clots were around
like a little round you know like a pea size or something and no blood clots are the form of
the vein so they can be long you know they can feel long the the the size and shape of a vein
so be careful with you know with a deep vein thrombosis because that is inflammation of the
veins and uh as a matter of fact varicose veins i'm surprised it's not up here but varicose veins
is um the they they lost the elasticity of the little valves so the blood starts pulling
and that's you know like a little pool of blood you know where you can see the the in
um varicose veins how it looks like they're deformed and there's they're very blue around
that area varicose veins is nothing more that the little valve that used to close does not close
anymore it's lost as flexibility it happens a lot with people that stand up for long periods of time
or you know use or are very overweight or with women that are pregnant that put that extra
pressure you know on their on their legs so i just gave you a freebie one varicose veins that's not
up here so anyway this is the first part of the cardiovascular diseases and i will have part two
the next time and i'm just breaking them apart when there's too many and one and some of them
don't some of them have very few pathologies but these are all the pathologies to the
cardiovascular system part one part two is to follow until the next time create a great day
you