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Congestive Heart Failure (cont.)

Outlook

Heart failure is a major health problem that comes with the graying of America. Today, many more people are surviving heart attacks and other heart diseases. This allows them many more years of quality life but can eventually lead to the development of heart failure.

In recent years, more effective medications have been developed that improve the outlook of heart failure. Medications are the mainstay of therapy with congestive heart failure. 

  • New and sophisticated treatments are allowing people to live longer. These results are proven by clinical trials where patients volunteer to take new therapies under strict ethical and scientific monitoring.

  • Pacemakers and implantable defibrillators have improved and now offer the ability to control rare but life-threatening disturbances of heart rhythm in some people.

  • Some people may even benefit from sophisticated treatments such as heart transplants and newer forms of temporary mechanical hearts.


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Congestive Heart Failure - Symptoms Experienced

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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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