National Wear Red Day 2011
February 9, 2011Capella Healthcare’s Corporate Staff Participates in National Wear Red Day 2011
Franklin, TN – Despite the common belief that women are “protected” from heart disease by their hormones, statistics show that cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer of women 20 years and older at a rate of one woman every minute.
For those reasons – and some very personal ones – Capella Healthcare’s CFO Denise Warren is volunteering her time to serve as Middle Tennessee’s Go Red For Women Campaign Chairman for the American Heart Association this year.
Denise Warren, SVP, CFO, (second from the left on the middle row) is serving as Middle Tennessee’s “Go Red For Women” Campaign Chairman for the American Heart Association. Capella’s CEO Dan Slipkovich (right) shows his dedication to the cause by not only wearing a red shirt, but matching red socks as well.
“Heart disease kills 1 in 3 women,” she said. “I know this all too well – I lost my mother to heart disease last October. I lost my mother-in-law to heart disease in 2001. My step-mother had five-bypass surgery in September 2009. So for me, it is not a matter of if I have heart disease, but when I will have it.”
Since 1984, more women have died of heart disease than men, and 267,000 women die each year from heart attacks, according to the Women’s Heart Foundation. In fact, more women die of heart disease than the next four causes of death combined, including cancer.
“These statistics are totally unacceptable, and together, we can change the outlook for ourselves, our wives, our mothers, our sisters and our daughters.”
National Wear Red Day 2011 is part of campaign to highlight women’s symptoms by helping to increase awareness of the different symptoms women may experience when having a heart attack. The symptoms of a heart attack differ from men to women. Men generally show the classic symptoms most know about: tightness in the chest or pain that radiates down the arm. A much smaller percentage of women present with chest pain. They sometimes present with fatigue or with discomfort in the throat and the jaw. They’re often nauseated or short of breath.
Denise wants to make sure that women “know their numbers” by seeing their physicians and understanding the role their blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose play in their risk. She encourages folks to assess their risk through the American Heart Association’s Heart Attack Risk Calculator.