Health
Heart Failure
Heart failure is a condition in which the heart can’t pump enough blood throughout the body. Heart failure does not mean that your heart has stopped or is about to stop working. It means that your heart is not able to pump blood the way it should.
Taking steps to prevent CAD can help prevent heart failure. These steps include following a heart healthy diet, not smoking, doing physical activity, and losing weight if you’re overweight or obese. Working with your doctor to control high blood pressure and diabetes also can help prevent heart failure.The best way to prevent heart failure is to control risk factors and aggressively manage any underlying conditions such as coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or obesity.
Echocardiography and Radionuclide ventriculography are often used to make sure of the diagnosis. An echocardiogram is a test that causes no pain. A probe is moved across the surface of your chest. It sends out sound waves that allow your doctor to get pictures of your heart. The pictures show your doctor how well your heart is pumping.Accumulation of blood coming into the left side of the heart causes congestion in the lungs, making breathing difficult. Accumulation of blood coming into the right side of the heart causes congestion and fluid accumulation in other parts of the body, such as the legs and the liver. Heart failure usually affects both the right and left sides of the heart to some degree.When a doctor examines you, he or she may find signs that occur with heart failure. For example, an enlarged heart, a faster than normal pulse, or signs of fluid retention such as swollen ankles, an enlarged liver, or crackles in the lungs when the chest is examined. However, these signs and the symptoms mentioned above can be due to various conditions other than heart failure. Therefore, if heart failure is suspected, tests are usually done to confirm the diagnosis.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.
