Cardiovascular disease

 

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a group of diseases that affect the heart or blood vessels and it is currently the leading cause of death in Australia.

There are a number of ways you could choose to look for information about cardiovascular disease, but first you should think about the search terms you will use. Following are some suggested search terms you should consider using for your search:

·         Heart disease – this is the most commonly used term for cardiovascular disease.

·         CVD – this is the acronym for cardiovascular disease.

You could also try looking for specific heart diseases such as;

·         Cardiomyopathy – diseases of cardiac muscle

·         Heart failure

·         Pulmonary heart disease – failure on the right side of the heart.

·         Congenital heart disease – heart structure abnormalities that exist from birth.

·         Myocardial infarction – this is also known as a ‘heart attack’ (another great term you could use).

As you can see there are many options for search terms to do with heart diseases and if you like you can try them all. If you look up the Wikipedia article on ‘cardiovascular disease’ you will find a number of other great search terms to use, do remember that Wikipedia isn’t a reliable source though so you should not rely on it for your assignments.

In the Library& on the Library website

When searching the Library catalogue you will get more results using the search term “heart disease” than if you use “cardiovascular disease”. You could also find information about these diseases by looking in health books, if you have any problems finding material please ask one of the staff for assistance.
If you go to the Information desk online site you can use encyclopaedias like Britannica and World Book to access information using the keywords discussed above.  

If you then go to the Reference Databases webpage you could using the keyword suggestions we have discussed above to search in the Science Reference Center database, Academic Search Premier and Consumer Health Complete.

Online & websites that you might find useful

If you decide that Google is the way to go think about your search terms, “cardiovascular disease” because it is a more clinical term will get you higher quality results. It will also get you results from all over the world (even if you go to Google.com.au), if you want specific information about cardiovascular disease in Australian then you must put the word “Australia” somewhere in your search term.

Check out some of the websites below that are reliable sources with great information:

Cardiovascular disease This website is fantastic, it is written by the Australian Government Department of Health and not only has information about a number of heart diseases, it also gives information on treatments, has information on programmes and activities to support prevention and optimal detection and treatment and also has some amazing related links.

Australia'shealth 2014
Australia’s health 2014 is the 14th biennial health report of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. This resource contains information and statistics on the all areas to do with the health of Australians. There is a free PDF available of the report from this page.

Data and Statistics
This page is written by the Heart Foundation and has some seriously important information that will be very valuable to your research. It contains a lot of data and statistics about a variety of things related to heart disease such as the prevalence of heart disease in each state, facts and figures specifically related to Australia and links to a number of fact sheets.

Heart Disease – Australian Bureau of Statistics The Australian Bureau of Statistics is a very reliable source of data, it has some great information on heart disease and includes links to some other very valuable websites you can check out.

The Human Body

Fun fact: When you are sleeping your ears continue to pick up sound but your brain blocks them out.

The human body is an amazing and complex thing, doctor’s study for many years to get a good understanding of the human body and how it works as well as how to treat its ailments.

There is a lot of information available about human anatomy and we are going to explore some of the ways you can access it.

A good place to get started is to do some general reading about the body; this will give you a good knowledge base to start off with and will help you choose keywords for your information search.

Try keywords like:

·         Human body

·         Human anatomy

·         Human physiology

If your assignment is on the human body in general, then the keywords above will provide you with a great amount of information.

If you need more information on a specific area of the body then you need to be specific in the search terms you choose. For instance, a book on ‘human anatomy’ might have a paragraph or two about the lungs, but if your whole assignment is on lungs then you will need more information than this. Use the specific area of the body as your search term, try:

·         Lungs

·         Heart

·         Nervous system OR human brain

·         Digestive system

In the Library & on the Library website

Searching the catalogue using the keywords discussed above will find you some great print resources to work from.

If you go to the Information desk online webpage on the Library website you can use encyclopaedias like Britannica and World Book to access information using the keywords above. 

If you then go to the ReferenceDatabases webpage try using the keyword suggestions we have discussed above to search in the Consumer Health Complete databases which contains a lot of information on all areas of health. If you are looking for something specific, such as conditions that affect the heart then perhaps try something like ‘cardiovascular disease’. 

 
Online & websites that you might find useful

If you decide to look for information online, do be careful because there is a lot of information available on the web and you need to make sure that the source of the website is reliable. One great way you can decide if a website it reliable is to look at who created it and ask yourself whether the person or group that created it would be experts in this area. Have a look at some of the below websites to get an idea of what sites you can use.

Atlas of the Human Body

This website was created by the American Medical Association so you know that the site was made by people who have knowledge and expertise about the human anatomy. The site has some great information about many areas of the human body and even includes some information about disorders.

Human body

This website was developed by the science section of National Geographic. It has some great information and even interactive sections like this page on lungs
Fun fact: Coughing can cause air to move through your windpipe faster than the speed of sound.

Science kids

This website is aimed at a younger audience and is written by a gentleman with a degree who has a lot of experience in the area of Science. It is a great resource with a lot of interactive areas to enjoy and learn from.

The Human Body: Anatomy, Facts & Functions

This is a great article that talks about all the areas of the human anatomy, it also contains links to provide you with more information about each area. If you scroll to the bottom of the page you can see that the woman that wrote the article holds a number of degrees including a Master of Science in biology which means she is well qualified to be educating others on the body.