What consequence does ignoring an angina pain(with sweating and left inner arm pain) for abt 5 hrs have on the heart?

[Aneez]

My Father had experienced an angina pain in 2004 which lasted 2 hrs and disappeared. Due to his military conditioning, he has this annoying habit of pain denial and not telling us anything. Anyway, he had a full medical as well as cardio checkup in 2005 and was given an absolutely clean chit.
End Feb 2010, he had a continuous and spasming pain in his chest and left inner arm this was accompanied by sweating. He self medicated with a pill to dilate his arteries, ignored the pain and waited for it to disappear like before. Around 5 hrs later, he finally admitted to the pain and we rushed him to the hospital. Where we found out that it was an angina attack & there was a 100% blockage in his right artery during the angiography and had the Doc. conduct an angioplasty immediately. Three medicated stents were put into his right artery. The other arteries are absolutely fine and none have plack formation.
QUESTION: Would a delay in acknowledging the need to go to the hospital (5 hours in this case) cause irreparable damage to  the heart?
How do we know if the muscle which wasn't getting enough oxygen is dead or can recover?
What are the important changes in lifestyle we should incorporate apart from no smoking and working out?

[kenkeith]

QUESTION: Would a delay in acknowledging the need to go to the hospital (5 hours in this case) cause irreparable damage to  the heart?
How do we know if the muscle which wasn't getting enough oxygen is dead or can recover?
What are the important changes in lifestyle we should incorporate apart from no smoking and working out?


>>>Yes, a delay going to the hospital can cause heart cell damage if the cause of the condition is related to insufficient supply of blood to the heart cells (usually some blockage of the coronary arteries).  The heart cells could be stunned and recover with timely treatment and/or the heart cells are necrotic (dead).

An echocardiogram (ultra sound) will view the heart wall movement and a diagnosis can determine  the degree of movement impairment.  Also, the test calculates the percentage of blood pumped with each heartbeat. (ejection fraction {EF}).

Diet, exercise, avoid stressful situational lifestyle, etc.