History Taking, Assessment, and Diagnosis of Patients with Cardiovascular Diseases-Re-defining the Clinical Skills.

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases are among the top leading causes of death worldwide. Most of the time, the patients present with no symptoms, or some symptoms resemble other diseases. This makes most cases challenging for physicians and healthcare workers to diagnose. Besides this, most of the time, not diagnosing the patient on time or delay in the start of intervention is the main cause of death in cardiovascular diseases. Proper history and examination can play a crucial role in this part. History taken in properly can help in reaching the diagnosis. Apart from this, it also helps in the start of empirical therapy. This is where most clinicians are lacking. Waiting for the labs is still time-wasting in other health issues, but it can be killing in cardiac patients. Thus the cardiologist needs to start with a good history and then go on with examinations. Then confirm their findings with the proper labs. This narrows down the diagnosis and saves a lot of time. History-taking is the most important clinical step in the management of patients. But most of the time, it is underrated, and most clinicians rely on labs rather than these basic skills. This article thus reviews the importance of history-taking in diagnosing patients with cardiovascular diseases. Besides this, it also addresses how a good history should be taken to narrow down the diagnosis and reach the proper diagnosis within time to save a patient's life.