February is American Heart Month, and Feb. 22nd is National Heart Valve Disease (HVD) Awareness Day. Sponsored by the Alliance for Aging Research, HVD Awareness Day is dedicated to increasing education and awareness of the risks and symptoms of HVD with the aim of reducing the instances of arrhythmias, heart attacks, heart failure, and other heart diseases every year.

CardioVisual partners with the Alliance for Aging Research and Heart Valve Disease Day to spread awareness of valve conditions. Five million people in the United States live with HVD, but there isn’t much public awareness of the disease. One in eight people over age 75 likely suffers from moderate to severe HVD of some kind. Often, symptoms of HVD are dismissed as part of aging, but gone untreated, HVD can be deadly. That’s why CardioVisual is proud to support patient education of complex cardiovascular conditions such as aortic stenosis and its treatment and offering patient education videos from the Alliance for Aging Research on the CV app.

This year, physicians and other healthcare professionals have some additional opportunities to engage their patients about HVD. On Feb 22nd, HCPs can participate in the official Valve Disease Day Twitter Chat with the hashtag #ValveDiseaseDay and by following the Twitter handle @ValveDiseaseDay.

In addition, leaders from the Heart and Vascular Institute, Alliance for Aging Research President & CEO Sue Peschin, along with valve disease patients, will share their perspectives on HVD and current research, which will be shared live on Facebook at February 22, 2019 starting at 11:00am EST. The Alliance for Aging Research also offers this short video in using social media to raise awareness of heart valve disease.