Overview
The main contact persons for our patients are specially trained physicians in the Department of Congenital Heart Defects. The attending physician takes over the coordination of follow-up care, determines clarification steps together with the patient and organizes further treatments and interventions if this becomes necessary. For emergencies, the duty physician of the department for congenital heart defects is available. If hospitalization becomes necessary, our patients are cared for by our team of physicians.
The frequency of check-ups and the examinations performed (cardiac ultrasound, stress test, etc.) depend on the type of heart defect and the state of health of the individual patient. Accordingly, the examinations take different lengths of time, usually several hours. Since there can sometimes be some waiting time between the individual examinations, we ask you to take something to read with you. Your doctor will clarify with you which examinations are necessary for you.
After check-up
At the end of each check-up, your doctor will discuss the results of the examinations with you, answer your questions and explain the next steps. If you already have questions that you would like to discuss with us before the consultation, it is worth writing them down beforehand so that nothing is forgotten.
Further examinations
In addition to the medical consultation and the physical examination, further examinations are performed depending on the type of heart defect. Your doctor will discuss with you the necessity and frequency of these additional examinations. These additional examinations include:
- Resting ECG (heart flow curve)
- Blood test
- Heart ultrasound (echocardiography, echo)
- Exercise test on a bicycle or treadmill (ergometry)
- Spiroergometry (exercise test with measurement of oxygen uptake via a mask)
- Cardiac pacemaker check
- X-ray of the chest
- Long-term ECG (Holter ECG)
- 24-hour blood pressure measurement
- Computer tomography (CT)
- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
- Liver ultrasound
- etc.
