Anda di halaman 1dari 4

Diseases of the blood

Heart failure.
Heart failure (HF), often referred to as congestive heart failure (CHF), occurs when
the heart is unable to pump sufficiently to maintain blood flow to meet the body's needs.

Signs and symptoms commonly


include shortness of breath, excessive tiredness, and leg swelling. The shortness of breath is
usually worse with exercise, while lying down, and may wake the person at nigh. A limited ability
to exercise is also a common feature. Chest pain, including angina, does not typically occur due
to heart failure.

Causes
Common causes of heart failure include coronary artery disease including a previous myocardial
infarction (heart attack), high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, valvular heart disease, excess

alcohol use, infection, and cardiomyopathy of an unknown cause. These cause heart failure by
changing either the structure or the functioning of the heart.

Types of heart failure


These cause heart failure by changing either the structure or the functioning of the heart.There
are two main types of heart failure: heart failure due to left ventricular dysfunction and heart
failure with normal ejection fraction depending on whether the ability of the left ventricle to
contract is affected, or the heart's ability to relax.The severity of disease is usually graded by the
degree of problems with exercise.

Heart failure is a common, costly, and potentially fatal condition. In developed countries, around
2% of adults have heart failure and in those over the age of 65, this increases to 610%. In the
year after diagnosis the risk of death is about 35% after which it decreases to below 10% each
year. This is similar to the risks with a number of types of cancer.

Treatment Or Medications
Doctors usually treat heart failure with a combination of medications. Depending on your
symptoms, you might take one or more medications, including:

Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors


Angiotensin II receptor blockers
Beta blockers.
Diuretics.

In some cases, doctors recommend surgery to treat the underlying problem that led
to heart failure. Some treatments being studied and used in certain people include:

Coronary bypass surgery. If severely blocked arteries are contributing to


your heart failure, your doctor may recommend coronary artery bypass
surgery. In this procedure, blood vessels from your leg, arm or chest bypass a
blocked artery in your heart to allow blood to flow through your heart more
freely.

Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs). An ICD is a device


similar to a pacemaker. It's implanted under the skin in your chest with
wires leading through your veins and into your heart.

The ICD monitors the heart rhythm. If the heart starts beating at a
dangerous rhythm, or if your heart stops, the ICD tries to pace your
heart or shock it back into normal rhythm. An ICD can also function as
a pacemaker and speed your heart up if it is going too slow.

Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), or biventricular


pacing. A biventricular pacemaker sends timed electrical impulses to
both of the heart's lower chambers (the left and right ventricles) so that
they pump in a more efficient, coordinated manner.

Heart transplant. Some people have such severe heart failure that
surgery or medications don't help. They may need to have their
diseased heart replaced with a healthy donor heart.

Heart transplants can dramatically improve the survival and quality of


life of some people with severe heart failure. However, candidates for
transplantation often have to wait a long time before a suitable donor
heart is found. Some transplant candidates improve during this waiting
period through drug treatment or device therapy and can be removed
from the transplant waiting list

Anda mungkin juga menyukai