Jennifer White explains why heart health is critical in Friedreich’s ataxia (FA), including the risk of silent cardiac complications and symptoms like fatigue and arrhythmias.
Transcript
Hi, my name is Jennifer White, and I am a cardiac provider in open heart surgery.
I’m also fortunate enough to work for Luxio Therapeutics, Inc., looking at an investigational gene therapy for Friedreich’s ataxia cardiomyopathy.
It’s important to learn about heart health in Friedreich’s ataxia because up to 80% of individuals with FA will have cardiac complications leading to death. And many of the symptoms can be silent.
Symptoms like fatigue that can be from either the neurologic manifestations or the cardiac manifestations, also the thickness of your heart and any type of irregular heartbeats, or arrhythmias.