Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is a generic term used to describe diseases of the Cardiac and Vascular system. Commonly these diseases share risk factors such as Obesity, smoking and other lifestyle factors and are often linked, so they are regularly discussed together.
Clinicians, professionals and interventions often overlap but pathways – the journey through a medical process – are seen as separate.
For example, a patient who rings for an ambulance because they have suspected stroke can sometimes have risk factors such as high blood pressure or weight gain in common with someone who has had a heart attack, but their symptoms and treatment they receive will be very different when they reach hospital.
For that reason CVD is an umbrella term for the following:
Watch our short film on Life After Stroke, featuring Ian Muckleston, stroke survivor and volunteer with the Stroke Association:
