Active clinical trials for "Myocardial Ischemia"

We, the researchers, propose to link a clinical pharmacist with an internal medicine or family medicine team to provide pharmaceutical care to all patients assigned to the team. The hypothesis is that through this team based approach, pharmacists will act as a resource for providing pharmacotherapeutic advice during the drug therapy decision making process and promote optimal drug use by identifying and resolving actual and potential drug related problems. This study is designed to test this hypothesis, by assessing the impact of this intervention on evidence based, quality of drug therapy indicators, for patients admitted with heart failure (HF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), community acquired pneumonia (CAP), type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and stable coronary artery disease (CAD).

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the most common cause of death in the United States. A common term for CHD is "blocked arteries." People with CHD or "blocked arteries" often have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes. They are also more likely to suffer a heart attack. Many heart attacks could be prevented by taking medicines that control blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes. However, only 50%-60% of patients take their medicines as directed. Patients who don't take their medicines regularly are considered noncompliant. One of the risk factors for noncompliance is low health literacy. Health literacy is the ability to obtain, understand, and act on basic health information. Patients with low health literacy may not understand their illnesses as well, or how to take their medicines properly. The purposes of this project are to learn more about the relationship between low health literacy and medication compliance, and to test 2 different strategies designed to help patients take their medicines more regularly. Patients with CHD were recruited when they arrived for a regular doctor's appointment. We measured their health literacy skills, asked questions about how they take their medications, and checked their blood pressure and last cholesterol and diabetes measurements. We then assigned patients to 1 of 4 intervention groups (intervention ongoing). The first group is receiving usual care, which includes regular medication instructions printed on the bottle and no reminders to refill medicines. The second group gets monthly postcards reminding them to refill their prescriptions. The third group gets a new medication schedule that shows them, with pictures and figures, how they are supposed to take their medicines each day. The fourth group receives both the postcards and the new medication schedule. We are following patients for 1 year to see which intervention has the greatest impact on their medication compliance, blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes measurements. We will also examine whether patients' health literacy affects the success of the interventions.

This is an observational study among Latino patients who have coronary artery disease. The goal of the study is to determine the association between having depressive symptoms and the ability to modify one's health behavior. Specifically, participate in physical activity.

To examine whether serum androgens, measured earlier in life, and variation in genes related to androgen synthesis, metabolism, and signaling are associated with early-onset subclinical coronary atherosclerosis in young adult women from the community.

To assess genetic effects on the variation of cardiovascular and pulmonary risk factors in a cohort of 514 pairs of white male veteran twins.

To further define the linkage of the Apo A-I gene polymorphism to genetic high density lipoprotein (HDL) deficiency and premature coronary artery disease. Also, to utilize this gene marker to define the prevalence of genetic HDL deficiency in patients with premature coronary disease and to determine the relative risk of premature coronary disease associated with the Apo A-I gene polymorphism.

To determine the association between ischemic heart disease incidence and anthropometric indices of body-fat distribution.

To determine whether postprandial lipoproteins were associated with atherosclerosis, and if so, whether the association was statistically independent of that between fasting lipoproteins and atherosclerosis.

To provide a comprehensive description of smoking beliefs and behavior among rural Blacks, and to test the effectiveness of smoking cessation strategies delivered through Black churches.

To evaluate two educational programs that promoted the role of pediatric practices in lowering LDL cholesterol levels in 4-10 year old hypercholesterolemic children through dietary modification.