HealthDuties

Preventing heart failure can be as simple as modifying your lifestyle. That means stopping your smoking habit, reducing your salt intake, eating fresh fruits and vegetables, getting adequate sleep and rest, watching your weight and maintaining an exercise routine.

Heart failure is usually detected with a series of tests, as well as examining the patient’s health history. The tests are usually blood analysis, chest radiography, electrocardiogram (ECG/EKG) and echocardiography (ECHO).

People suffering from heart failure manage the problem with drugs or surgery. Some of the drugs used are ACE Inhibitors that widen the vessel lumen thus decreasing blood pressure, Beta Blocking drugs that lower heart rate and blood pressure. Digoxin to increase the cardiac muscle contraction and Diuretics to increase fluid output of the body. At times surgery needs to be performed in cases like opening the clogged arteries of the heart, repairing malfunctioning heart valves, coronary bypass, implanting a pacemaker or even an artificial pump to help the ailing heart.

Heart failure can be defined as the inability of heart to pump enough blood which will meet the bodies demand. Alternately, Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) means fluid accumulating in the body. It is more a clinical syndrome than a disease.

Some of the causes of heart failure include: decreased lumen of cardiac arteries, increase in blood pressure, trauma to the heart muscle, malfunctioning of heart valves, iregular heart contraction / Arrhythmia, metabolic disorders like diabetes, inborn errors such as congenital heart disease and substance abuse like alcoholism.

The symptoms of heart failure are:

• unpleasant sensation of breathing
• edema in dependent parts such as legs , foot
• Difficulty performing routine works gets tired easily.
• Fluid collected in abdomen , ascites
• Inappropriate increase in body weight