Diagnosing Heart Disease

Many women are surprised to learn that heart disease is the leading cause of death for women. Heart disease is a general term for a wide variety of diseases and conditions that affect the function of the heart.

To diagnose heart disease, your doctor will first review your medical history, health behaviors, family history, and other risk factors for heart disease. Your doctor will ask you about having any chest pain, fatigue, shortness of breath, weakness, and swelling of the feet and ankles. These symptoms may mean that you could have heart disease.

Your doctor will then perform a physical exam and focus on your lungs, heart and all of the blood vessels near and around the heart. They will place a stethoscope on your chest to listen to your heartbeat and to other areas to hear the heart valves. They will also listen to your lungs for sounds that they could have fluid inside them (which can be the result of heart disease). Your doctor may order special heart tests to confirm or rule out heart disease, figure out the extent of disease, or help in planning a treatment that is best for you.

When a person develops heart disease, it is most often due to a number of risk factors (rather than a single factor). Some of the risk factors for heart disease are beyond your control, such as age, family history of heart disease, and prior heart disease. But, there are risk factors you can do something about. Risk factors you can control include smoking, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, overweight and obesity, physical inactivity, and diabetes. If you have one or more of these risk factors, talk with your doctor to find out how to reduce your risk of getting heart disease.