Heart failure

Heart failure

Heart failure is the syndrome of clinical manifestations and symptoms that patients experience when the function of the heart is inadequate to meet the body’s requirements. This usually arises from significant damage to large parts of the heart’s muscle as a result of blocked arteries from a heart attack, or from a disease process of the muscle itself, which can arise from viral infections, certain genetic disorders or rarely other causes. The end result is enlargement and weakening of the heart as a mechanical pump.

Patients develop breathlessness, lethargy, poor exercise tolerance and swollen lower limbs and stomach area due to fluid retention. Symptomatic patients have difficulty lying flat or sleeping, it may be difficult to wear normal footwear because of swelling in their feet, and poor appetite with nausea is often encountered due to backpressure on the gut from impaired cardiac function.

The incidence of heart failure increases with age and 1 in 10 patients over the age of 80 may develop this condition. Heart failure has a very bleak outlook. It is estimated even with the best heart failure drugs currently available, half of all symptomatic patients may not survive beyond 2-3 years.

It is estimated that as many as 20-30% of all heart failure patients have significant damage or malfunction of the normal electrical wiring within the heart resulting in areas of early and late pump activation. This defect would introduce marked incoordination into the pumping action of a already weakened heart and worsen heart failure.