Free cardiac seminar set for March 19 at HealthPark
A free Make Your Health Last as Long as Your Life cardiac seminar will be held at HealthPark Medical Center on March 19 from 8:30 a.m. until noon featuring two guest speakers.
At the age of 32, Joe Piscatella had bypass surgery done with the prognosis not being good. One doctor believed that he would not live to be 40.
“Instead of accepting that, my wife and I decided to work on the lifestyle side of it,” Piscatella said. He is now 32 years post bypass surgery due to lifestyle changes he made.
Making lifestyle changes is what he wants to share during the seminar, whether it is for prevention or managing heart disease.
“You really want to put your mind on the lifestyle part of it,” Piscatella said.
Although the seminar will look at various aspects of lifestyle habits and how that impacts the longevity of one’s life, Piscatella said he is more concerned about the quality of life and how many years that can be obtained.
He said there is an abundance of education floating around on how individual health can be increased, but he has found that no one applies it to their own lifestyle.
Piscatella said he does not understand where the obstacle is that is keeping people from putting that information to work.
“That I think is the most critical question in national health care today,” he said. “If people know the difference between an apple and apple pie… then the real question is why do some of these folks not put that information to work?”
Piscatella said he wants to “provide the public with the latest information about lifestyle and cardiac health and make sure the years that you live are the healthiest possible.”
Some of the topics he will discuss will address managing stress, diet, exercise and staying away from smoking.
“Stress is the real killer,” he explained, because individuals tend to focus the majority of their attention on having a good diet and exercising.
That stress can have an opposite affect on an individual’s lifestyle, he said, because instead of eating a healthy lunch they may grab a bag of M&Ms from the vending machine and drive by the gym, instead of stopping in because they do not have enough time.
An ideal life, he said, is having the ability to put together a plan for a healthy lifestyle and being able to stick to it.
His newest book “Prevent, Halt & Reverse Heart Disease” recently came out. He said it is an important book “because it is extremely current on the thinking of how heart disease occurs, what they can do to prevent it and if they have it what they can do to halt it.”
Dr. Paul DiGiorgi will provide information about the latest advances in cardiac surgery, which will include minimally invasive, robotic bypass surgery and valve surgery during the seminar next week.
A continental breakfast and refreshments will be provided for the seminar.
Those who are interested can call (239) 343-6971 to register.