She was initially feared to have suffered a heart attack just minutes after saying her final goodbyes to her ill mother.
But Brenda Young was quite literally struck down with a broken heart – also known as a takotsubo cardiomyopathy attack – triggered by her intense grief.
The 57-year-old residential social worker is now one of the first patients in the country to take part in a clinical trial for the long-term management of the condition, better known as ‘broken heart syndrome’.
Mrs Young, who lives in St Fergus, Aberdeenshire, with husband Bryan, 56, and their two grown up children, is one of 1,000 patients from 40 hospitals who will take part in the seven-year study that will involve scientists and clinicians from across Britain including Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Often misdiagnosed as a heart attack, broken heart syndrome carries the same risk of death and serious health complications, including stroke and further attacks.
But instead of being caused by a blockage in the heart’s arteries, it is the result of a severe weakening of the muscle, triggered by sudden emotional stress, such as the loss of a loved one.
Aberdeenshire mother Brenda Young is taking part in a medical trial to treat people with the ‘broken heart syndrome’
Brenda Young (left) in happier times with her sister and mother
Mrs Young recalled how within minutes of her mother’s passing she began feeling an ‘intense, overwhelming pain in the middle of my chest’.
She said: ‘I just remember thinking: “This cannot be happening, not today”. I knew there was something really wrong. My family were all around my mum’s bedside and I thought “how can I tell them I’m having chest pain”.’
Doctors initially told her she had ‘probably had a heart attack’ but further tests confirmed a takotsubo cardiomyopathy attack.
In the weeks that followed, Mrs Young, who had never heard of the condition before, received medication and was given the same advice as she would have for a heart attack.
But with no clinically proven treatments that work, the study, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, hopes to change this.
Mrs Young and other patients will trial a class of medicines that relax blood vessels called ‘renin-angiotensin system inhibitors’, normally used to treat heart attacks to see if it could be used to prevent deaths, heart attacks, strokes, heart failure and repeated takotsubo attacks in the long term.
There are around 5,000 sufferers, mainly women, in the UK each year with one in 10 dying from the initial attack or later from these associated complications.
Professor Dana Dawson, chair in Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Aberdeen and consultant cardiologist at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, who is leading the trial, however, said: ‘People living with takotsubo syndrome are effectively in limbo at the moment. There is no proven therapy which means treatments can vary from person to person.’
She added: ‘We know that following an attack, the impact on the patient’s quality of life can be extremely debilitating.
‘We hope that this will make it clear whether or not these drugs are effective at preventing repeated health problems in the long-term.’
