Your heart has lost some ability to pump blood. This can cause shortness of breath, weakness and fluid retention. Congestive heart failure (CHF) is serious, but many treatments can help you feel better. If you know a lot about CHF, you have a good chance of staying out of the hospital.
If not properly managed, HF can lead to frequent hospitalizations. A heart failure hospitalization should be viewed as a sentinel event. Five year survival after a heart failure hospitalization is only 20 percent, a prognosis that is worse than most cancer diagnoses.
With heart failure patients staying in hospital for around 10 days – double the average of five days for all diagnoses – this is putting immense pressure on the NHS.
Heart failure is a condition in which the heart is no longer able to pump oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body efficiently. When symptoms become severe, a hospital stay may be necessary. This article discusses what you need to do to take care of yourself when you leave the hospital.
Heart failure occurs when the heart muscle doesn't pump blood as well as it should. Blood often backs up and causes fluid to build up in the lungs and in the legs. The fluid buildup can cause shortness of breath and swelling of the legs and feet. Poor blood flow may cause the skin to appear blue or gray.
Loop diuretics should be used as first-line agents, with thiazides added for refractory fluid overload. Diuretic treatment should be combined with a low-salt diet,8 a β-blocker, and an ACE inhibitor. The practitioner should begin with oral furosemide, 20 to 40 mg once daily.
Palliative care provides physical, emotional, spiritual and practical support to improve patients' quality of life. Members of the patient's care team may include: community heart failure nurses. community nurses.
However, life expectancy for a person with CHF has substantially improved over time. A person's age at diagnosis may impact prognosis. The authors report that the 5-year survival rate for people under 65 years of age was around 79%, while the rate was about 50% for those 75 and over.
Medicines are the main treatment for heart failure, but for some people surgery may help. Operations that can help with heart failure include: heart valve surgery. a coronary angioplasty or bypass.
About half of people who develop heart failure die within 5 years of diagnosis. 3. Most people with end-stage heart failure have a life expectancy of less than 1 year.
If you wake up feeling not refreshed, you have daytime sleepiness or if you need to curtail your daytime activity because of lack of energy, these could be signs your heart failure isn't being managed as well as it could be, Dr. Freeman says.
One study says that people with congestive heart failure have a life span 10 years shorter than those who don't have heart failure. Another study showed that the survival rates of people with chronic heart failure were: 80% to 90% for one year. 50% to 60% for year five.
Heart failure is a serious long-term condition that will usually continue to get slowly worse over time. It can severely limit the activities you're able to do and is often eventually fatal. But it's very difficult to tell how the condition will progress on an individual basis. It's very unpredictable.
You can resume your regular activities as soon as you feel better, but follow your doctor's guidelines. Increase your activities slowly, and always listen to your body so you know when it's time to take a rest break. Exercise in a cardiac rehabilitation facility can help strengthen your heart and increase your stamina.
A heart transplant may be considered if you have severe heart failure and medical treatments are not helping. Conditions that may eventually require a heart transplant include: coronary heart disease – a build-up of fatty substances in the arteries supplying the heart, which block or interrupt blood flow to the heart.
In general, about half of all people diagnosed with congestive heart failure will survive 5 years. About 30% will survive for 10 years. In patients who receive a heart transplant, about 21% of patients are alive 20 years later.
Warning signs and symptoms of heart failure include shortness of breath, chronic coughing or wheezing, swelling, fatigue, loss of appetite, and others. Heart failure means the heart has failed to pump the way it should in order to circulate oxygen-rich blood throughout the body.
Actually, heart failure, sometimes called HF, means that the heart isn't pumping as well as it should. Congestive heart failure is a type of heart failure that requires timely medical attention, although sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably.
You can have palliative care at any age and at any stage of your illness. You can also have it together with curative treatment. Palliative care is provided by a team of palliative care doctors, nurses and social workers.
talk to them about how they're feeling. reassure them that you're there. encourage them to talk to others about their feelings and worries. encourage and support your loved one to be as independent as possible.
Patients with congestive heart failure have a high incidence of sudden cardiac death that is attributed to ventricular arrhythmias.
Although heart failure is a serious condition that progressively gets worse over time, certain cases can be reversed with treatment. Even when the heart muscle is impaired, there are a number of treatments that can relieve symptoms and stop or slow the gradual worsening of the condition.
Stage II: You don't have heart failure symptoms at rest, but some symptoms slightly limit your physical activity. Symptoms include fatigue and shortness of breath. Stage III: Heart failure symptoms noticeably limit your physical activity (but you still are asymptomatic at rest).