Emergency call at Christmas: don't hesitate!

Lisa Vogel studied departmental journalism with a focus on medicine and biosciences at Ansbach University and deepened her journalistic knowledge in the master's degree in multimedia information and communication. This was followed by a traineeship in the editorial team. Since September 2020 she has been writing as a freelance journalist for

More posts by Lisa Vogel All content is checked by medical journalists.

Holiday stress can trigger a heart attack. The risk is higher during the Christmas season, especially for the elderly. Emergency doctors warn against a false fear of the holidays: Always dial 112 for acute symptoms such as chest pain.

Christmas is the celebration of love, joy and family. But the holidays can also bring hectic pace, unforeseen events or arguments - and thus stress. This is obviously very important: A study by the Swedish Lund University shows that people over the age of 75 and people with previous illnesses have an increased risk of heart attacks on public holidays.

This is the result of an analysis of the data from more than 280,000 heart attack patients between 1998 and 2013. The scientists working with cardiologist Moman Mohammad compared the number of heart attack-related hospital admissions in the week from Christmas to New Year's Eve with the week before the holidays and the first week of the New Year.

More heart attacks on Christmas Eve

During Christmas week, the risk of a heart attack for the elderly and the chronically ill is increased - on December 24th by as much as 37 percent. The scientists were able to identify a particularly large number of heart attack cases around 10 p.m.

"We can confirm from our own experience that heart patients are admitted more frequently, especially during longer public holidays such as Christmas," says Professor Thomas Voigtländer, Deputy Chairman of the German Heart Foundation.

Life-threatening hesitation

But on the holidays people shy away from dialing the emergency number, writes the German Heart Foundation in its press release. If you hesitate, you risk your life: "The patient can suddenly develop heart fibrillation, pass out and die of sudden cardiac arrest in a few minutes," says Voigtländer. In the event of a heart attack, every minute counts.

Chest pain: don't take a detour!

Acute chest pain that lasts more than five minutes is always a medical emergency. A heart attack can also cause chest tightness, nausea, sweating and shortness of breath.

According to the German Heart Foundation, people with these symptoms should not take the detour via the family doctor or the medical on-call service, but rather dial the emergency number directly. "There is absolutely no reason to be afraid of the 112", says Voigtländer.

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