Heart disease is a major threat to health, especially for the over 65s, for whom prevention and early diagnosis are essential. For this reason, the Pro-rectorate of the University of Rome Tor Vergata and the Third Mission of UniCamillus, in collaboration with the Società Italiana di Cardiologia Geriatrica (Italian Society of Geriatric Cardiology), the Fondazione Longevitas, the Associazione Salute e Società and the Associazione Cuore Nostro, are promoting a week of free cardiological screening, this time at the Santa Francesca Romana nursing home in the Trastevere area of Rome. This initiative will be launched on 24th April at 12 pm at the nursing home at Vicolo di S. Maria in Cappella, 6, and will also be attended by the President of the Regione Lazio, Antonio Aurigemma.
The screening week will include the administration of a questionnaire designed to take patients’ medical history and determine their social vulnerability index, which correlates health status with socio-economic variables. The patients then undergo a cardiological check-up, an electrocardiogram and echocardiogram. Students of the BSc Nursing at Tor Vergata will be actively involved in all these activities.
The aim of the project is to estimate the prevalence and severity of the most common cardiovascular diseases in the elderly population—atrial fibrillation, heart failure and valvular heart disease—and to promote early detection of undiagnosed problems. The initiative will target the over-65s in the Aventino and Trastevere neighbourhoods, and represents a new step in a wider project that will gradually be extended to other areas of the Italian city.
“This is the successful implementation of the concept of community prevention, a method of prevention that, thanks to cooperation and close communication within a community—such as a retirement centre, a neighbourhood or a nursing home—guarantees the highest participation in screening. This model has already been applied to ten geographically distributed areas of Italy and has produced relevant data on the presence of unknown cardiovascular diseases in the over-65s”, says Alessandro Boccanelli, scientific coordinator of the project and president of Salute e Società ODV.
“Through this project, our University has the opportunity to respond to the social and health needs of the most vulnerable people, interacting with the community and building effective, sustainable and inclusive activities accessible to everyone”, adds Rosaria Alvaro, Pro-Rector for Social Innovation at Tor Vergata.
“The health and cardiovascular well-being of the elderly are determined by multiple factors, not only clinical but also relational, affective and socio-cultural ones. Our aim is to assess these ‘relational assets’ in order to contribute to a new definition of socio-economic vulnerability, extending the concept of wealth to the social dimension and giving depth to an integrated approach to prevention”, continues Donatella Padua, delegate for the Third Mission at UniCamillus.
“Projects such as this are essential for early detection of undiagnosed diseases, not only to save people’s lives and improve their quality of life, but also to reduce the social and welfare costs associated with late diagnosis, hospitalisation and acute conditions. This is why it is recommended that institutions guarantee effective preventive measures in the elderly population, and not only through cardiological screening”, concludes Eleonora Selvi, President of Fondazione Longevitas.
Press Office
Fondazione Longevitas
