The Normal Heart
While traveling back to New York City, Ned reads an article in the New York Times titled "Rare Cancer Diagnosed in 41 Homosexuals". Back in the city, he visits the offices of Dr. Emma Brookner (Julia Roberts), a physician who has seen many patients afflicted with symptoms of rare diseases that normally would be harmless unless their immune systems had been compromised. All of these cases seem to be appearing in gay men. In the waiting room, Ned meets Sanford (Stephen Spinella), a patient whose face and hands are marked with skin lesions caused by Kaposi's sarcoma, a rare cancer. Brookner examines Ned, but finds that he does not have the symptoms of this disease. She asks Ned to help her raise awareness of this disease within the gay community.
The Normal Heart
The film received widespread critical acclaim, with praise for Kramer's screenplay, its drama, moral messages, production values, and the performances of the cast.[16] Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 94% based on 50 reviews, with an average score of 7.72/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Thanks to Emmy-worthy performances from a reputable cast, The Normal Heart is not only a powerful, heartbreaking drama, but also a vital document of events leading up to and through the early AIDS crisis."[17] Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 85 out of 100, based on 33 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[18]
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone awarded the film with a 3.5/4 and praised the film, "Written, directed and acted with a passion that radiates off the screen, The Normal Heart is drama at its most incendiary, a blunt instrument that is also poetic and profound. As gay men in crisis, Taylor Kitsch, Jim Parsons and Joe Mantello (who played Ned onstage) all excel. But it's Kramer, still raging over what's not being done, who tears at your heart."[19] Ellen Gray of the Philadelphia Daily News commended "And though the supporting cast members are all good (Parsons particularly so), it's Kramer's fury, channeled through Ruffalo's manic energy as the writer's alter-ego Ned Weeks, that keeps The Normal Heart beating and preserves a horrific bit of all too recent history not in amber, but in anger."[20]
Generally, a lower heart rate at rest implies more efficient heart function and better cardiovascular fitness. For example, a well-trained athlete might have a normal resting heart rate closer to 40 beats per minute.
These four chambers are connected by valves that allow blood to move forward and prevent it from flowing backwards. Coronary arteries, or blood vessels, deliver a constant, nourishing supply of blood to the heart muscle itself.
The heart's pumping action, or "heartbeat," is directed by a complicated electrical system. Problems with the regular heartbeat, such as abnormally fast or slow rhythms, can be caused by a heart attack (myocardial infarction) or aging, but may happen for other reasons as well. Heart rhythm problems can cause the feeling that the heart is "racing," or "skipping" (palpitations), weakness, shortness of breath, passing out (syncope), and sometimes death.
Blockages in the coronary arteries can also cause major problems in the heart because they slow or stop the flow of blood to the heart muscle. If the heart does not get enough blood, pain (often called angina) or muscle death from a heart attack (myocardial infarction) can result which can damage the heart's ability to pump and cause abnormal heart rhythms.
Although people can do a great deal to protect their hearts by exercising regularly, eating a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy weight, not smoking, and controlling their cholesterol and blood pressure, some people are born with a tendency to have heart disease or have other illnesses that may affect the heart.
Atrial fibrillation (AFib) is the most common abnormal heart rhythm. In a normal heart, the four chambers of the heart beat in a steady, rhythmic pattern. With AFib, the atria (upper chambers of the heart) fibrillate (quiver or twitch quickly) and create an irregular rhythm.
Set against the rise of the HIV/AIDS crisis in New York City in the early 1980s, this classic AIDS drama is the story of writer and activist Ned Weeks (Kramer), the gay founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group. This heartfelt piece of realism explores dissenting tactics used to speak truth to power in the Reagan era, and what it means to fall in love in times of crisis.
One of the vital signs a nurse checks when you visit the doctor is your heart rate, along with temperature, blood pressure and respiratory rate. Your heart rate, which is measured by your pulse, is an important indicator of your overall health and fitness level. It can signal certain medical conditions or a need to adjust lifestyle habits that elevate your heart rate above the normal range determined by your age.
Meanwhile, your target heart rate should be about 50% to 70% of your maximum heart rate during moderate-intensity activity like walking. During more intense activity, such as exercising, running or working out with weights, your target heart rate should be about 70% to 85% of your maximum heart rate.
To find your heart rate, place your index and middle fingers gently against the underside of your wrist on the side just below the base of your thumb until you can feel the pulse. You can also measure heart rate by placing two fingers on one of the carotid arteries located on each side of your neck.
Research indicates that a higher resting heart rate is linked with higher blood pressure and body weight, along with lower physical fitness[1]Target Heart Rates Chart. American Heart Association. Accessed 4/7/2022. . In addition to medical conditions, such as anemia, high thyroid or hormone levels and blood clots, certain lifestyle factors can cause an elevated resting heart rate, says Dr. Tilahun.
Meanwhile, adults without an acute condition that might cause an elevated heart rate may also want to contact their doctor if their resting heart rate remains above 100 beats per minute for a few days, says Dr. Tilahun.
Although this is a work of fiction, the stories it tells about the emerging AIDS crisis in America are honest and heartbreakingly real, thanks to deeply affecting performances. Bomer, Jim Parsons, Taylor Kitsch, and Joe Mantello (who played Ned Weeks in the 2011 Broadway revival), to name a few, are all excellent. And whether or not you're gay, you'll feel sadness, shock, and anger long after the closing credits have faded to black.
For user acceptance we used steps of 5 bpm as possible borders of the normal FHR as recommended in the consensus meeting of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Macones et al., 2008; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Research Planning Workshop, 1997). The width of the interval of 40 to 45 bpm was traditionally used in many international guidelines. As we planned the study, we chose no other intervals, as narrowing of the interval would increase the false alarm rate and wider intervals could miss pathologic conditions of the fetus.
The upper limit of 160 bpm raised concerns in the FIGO meeting in 1985, as Saling described abnormal findings in 24% of scalp blood analyses if the baseline was higher than 160 bpm (Saling, 1966). It could be shown that the current FIGO guidelines based on computerized analyses of the CTG show a high sensitivity to detect fetal acidosis in case of a suspect or pathological classification of the baseline level. It may turn out that a modification of the normal ranges further improves sensitivity and specificity of fetal acidosis during labor (Schiermeier et al., 2008). Also, multivariate modeling involving fetal and maternal outcome data may improve evidence-based online decision support tools.
Data from a recently published study in a different context (Serra et al., 2009) is compatible with the findings of our exploratory analysis with a lower limit of 115 or 120 bpm for the gestational ages. Data for the 97th and 99th percentiles are not shown in this study. But shifting the lower limit to 120 will increase the number of false alarms whereas a lower limit of 115 will inevitably increase the risk to misinterpret maternal heart rates as fetal heart rate. This last problem has raised many concerns and discussions about technical solutions for differentiation of maternal and fetal heart rate, as fatal consequences for the fetus could occur (Murray, 2004). The new German guideline (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gynäkologie und Geburtshilfe, 2012) recommends therefore simultaneous recording of fetal and maternal heart rate, technically possible either by maternal pulse oxymetry integrated in a CTG device or simultaneous ECG recording of mother and fetus.
As FHR tracings of prenatal care patients were included, our study population consists of a fraction of pregnancies remote from term, eventually resulting in higher baselines as suggested before. As our analysis according to gestational ages shows, the upper limit of 160 bpm is valid for younger and for later gestational ages. A lower limit of 120 bpm leads only near term to more false alarms since normal FHR decreases further, and is more appropriate, as discussed above, to avoid misinterpretation of maternal heart beat as FHR. There are no different guidelines for scoring cardiotocograms of early gestational ages as this would be too difficult in daily practice. Only computerized algorithms could use boundaries without rounding based on multivariate modeling and correlate these results to fetal outcome.
Aims: Fibrofatty replacement of the right ventricle wall, often with associated inflammation, is the hallmark of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), a rare but established cause of sudden cardiac death in young adults. Fatty infiltration of the right ventricle alone without fibrosis may also occur but its relation to sudden death is not well established. In this study we assessed the amount of epicardial and intramyocardial fat in the right ventricle of 'normal' hearts from subjects who had died of non-cardiac causes. 041b061a72