Congestive Heart Failure
Medical Author:
Terrence X O'Brien, MD, FACC
Medical Editor:
Charles Patrick Davis, MD, PhD
Charles Patrick Davis, MD, PhDDr. Charles "Pat" Davis, MD, PhD, is a board certified Emergency Medicine doctor who currently practices as a consultant and staff member for hospitals. He has a PhD in Microbiology (UT at Austin), and the MD (Univ. Texas Medical Branch, Galveston). He is a Clinical Professor (retired) in the Division of Emergency Medicine, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, and has been the Chief of Emergency Medicine at UT Medical Branch and at UTHSCSA with over 250 publications.
Heart Failure SymptomsSymptoms of heart failure start to happen when your heart cannot pump enough blood to the rest of your body. In the early stages, you may:
As heart failure gets worse, fluid starts to build up in your lungs and other parts of your body. This may cause you to:
If your symptoms suddenly get worse, you will need emergency care. SOURCE: Congestive Heart Failure OverviewThe heart is fundamentally a blood pump. It pumps blood from the right side of the heart to the lungs to pick up oxygen. The oxygenated blood returns to the left side of the heart. The left side of the heart then pumps blood into the circulatory system of blood vessels that carry blood throughout the body. The heart consists of four chambers.
Heart failure sounds frightening because it sounds like the heart just stops working. Do not be discouraged by the term heart failure. Heart failure means the tissues of the body are temporarily not receiving as much blood and oxygen as needed. With advancements in diagnosis and therapy for heart failure, patients are feeling better and living longer.
Heart failure is an illness in which the pumping action of the heart becomes less and less powerful. When this happens, blood does not move efficiently through the circulatory system and starts to back up, increasing the pressure in the blood vessels and forcing fluid from the blood vessels into body tissues. Symptoms depend on which area of the body is most involved in the reduced pumping action.
Although heart failure is a serious medical condition, there are many causes and the outcome can vary from person to person. Heart failure may develop gradually over several years, or more quickly after a heart attack or a disease of the heart muscle. Congestive heart failure (CHF) is generally classified as systolic or diastolic heart failure and becomes progressively more common with increasing age. In addition, patients with risk factors for heart disease are more likely to develop congestive heart failure. Systolic heart failure: This condition occurs when the pumping action of the heart is reduced or weakened. A common clinical measurement is ejection fraction (EF). The ejection fraction is a calculation of how much blood is ejected out of the left ventricle (stroke volume) divided by the maximum volume remaining in the left ventricle at the end of diastole, or when the heart is relaxed after filling with blood. A normal ejection fraction is greater than 55%. Systolic heart failure is diagnosed when the ejection fraction has significantly decreased below the threshold of 55%. Diastolic heart failure: This condition occurs when the heart can contract normally but is stiff, or less compliant, when it is relaxing and filling with blood. The heart is unable to fill with blood properly, which produces backup into the lungs and heart failure symptoms. Diastolic heart failure is more common in patients older than 75 years of age, especially in patients with high blood pressure, and it is also more common in women. In diastolic heart failure, the ejection fraction is normal or increased. Heart failure affects 2% of the adult population. In the United States, nearly four million people have heart failure. Each year about 550,000 new cases are diagnosed. The condition is more common among African Americans than Caucasians.
Viewer Comments & ReviewsCongestive Heart Failure - Symptoms ExperiencedThe eMedicineHealth physician editors ask:For congestive heart failure, what were the symptoms and signs you experienced? Congestive Heart Failure - PrognosisThe eMedicineHealth physician editors ask:What is the prognosis for your congestive heart failure? |
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Heart Failure »
Heart failure is the pathophysiologic state in which the heart, via an abnormality of cardiac function (detectable or not), fails to pump blood at a rate commensurate with the requirements of the metabolizing tissues and/or pumps only from an abnormally elevated diastolic filling pressure.
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