A person suffers heart failure when the heart’s ability to pump enough blood to the entire body is reduced. This does not mean your heart has stopped working or will stop working but that it isn’t able to pump blood normally. This is known as congestive heart failure or CHF. There are two main forms of heart failure: one is systolic heart failure and the other is diastolic heart failure. Systolic heart failure is a systolic dysfunction that occurs due to a weakened pump function or contractile impairment. Here your heart’s lower chambers become too impaired to contract and pump blood to meet the body’s requirements. Nearly 30,000 people die of congestive heart failure in the United States every year.
The symptoms of systolic and diastolic heart failures are very similar and so it is not easy to distinguish between them based on physical examination or medical history alone. It is helpful to be aware of the difference between systolic and diastolic heart failure. In a systolic heart failure, blood pumped out of the heart with every heart beat is less than normal, while diastolic heart failure affects mainly the left ventricle, which doesn’t relax as it should and hence not allowing it to fill blood normally.
The causes of systolic heart failure are coronary heart disease, hypertension and ageing, valvular heart disease, arrhythmia and dilated cardiomyopathy. Let us look at some of these causes more closely:
Systolic heart failure symptoms, however mild, should be made known to a medical professional. The symptoms to look for are fatigue, shortness of breath or breathlessness, wheezing or chronic cough, nausea or lack of appetite, irregular or rapid heartbeat, swelling, fluid buildup, weight gain and memory loss or disorientation.
The aim of treating systolic heart failures is to reduce symptoms, decrease the development of the ailment and help improve the quality of life. Systolic heart failure treatment is usually a combination of three types of medication, which usually consists of an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACE) or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB), a diuretic and a beta blocker. ACE inhibitors help reduce symptoms and blood pressure, and also improve the clinical status and overall well-being of the patient. ARB drugs are given if the patient cannot manage the side effects of coughing. A diuretic controls and relieves fluid buildup in the limbs and lungs and a beta blocker lowers blood pressure, slows your heart rate and the progression of the ailment to improve survival. Systolic heart failure treatment can also include surgery if necessary, such as a heart valve repair or a coronary artery bypass graft. Implantable devices such as a defibrillator and a pacemaker, that control irregular heart rhythms can also be used and, for severe heart failure, a heart transplant might be needed.
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