Chronic heart failure is a disease in which, for various reasons, the heart cannot provide the body with the right amount of blood. Statistics show that such a disease is quite common, especially among older women. Some patients, when symptoms of heart failure appear, attribute them to general aging of the body. As a result, they do not receive the necessary treatment for a long time, which often causes death.
Chronic heart failure can occur as a result of heart diseases such as ischemia, cardiomyopathy and changes after a heart attack. In this case, the myocardium cannot develop efforts to effectively expel blood from the left ventricle. In some cases, chronic failure occurs due to heart valve defects, arterial hypertension, vasoconstriction, etc. There are other factors that have a great influence on the development of this disease: addiction to alcohol and drugs, hormonal disorders, inflammation of the heart muscle of an infectious nature, etc.
At the beginning of the disease, in order to maintain normal blood circulation, the heart begins to beat much more often, and also increases in volume and thickens. But the compensatory reserves of the myocardium are not unlimited and the development of such an irreversible effect as the replacement of muscle cells in the connective tissue begins in it. As a result, the heart loses much of its ability to contract. It was at this time that the clinical picture characteristic of such a disease as chronic heart failure began to emerge.
The first symptoms of this disease are fatigue and weakness. But such manifestations can also be with other diseases. Chronic heart failure, detected in the early stages, is better treatable, and the patient has a better life prognosis. In patients with this diagnosis, respiratory failure is often observed - dyspnea, which occurs due to the fact that fluid accumulates in the lungs.
Edema in heart failure can be considered one of the main symptoms. The heart cannot cope with the entire volume of blood that circulates in the body, and it can accumulate in the stomach, liver, and also in the legs - feet, hips and calves. Thus, swelling appears, which leads to a sharp increase in weight. The accumulation of fluid inside the abdominal cavity can lead to the development of a very dangerous condition - ascites. In some cases, when fluid enters the lungs, pulmonary edema develops.
One of the main manifestations of chronic heart failure is shortness of breath, which first appears only during physical exertion, and then at rest. Often with such a disease, there is a blueing of some parts of the body, mainly the fingers and lips.
Various methods and studies are used to diagnose heart failure, including listening to noise in the heart and lungs, blood and urine tests, an echocardiogram, magnetic resonance imaging, an electrocardiogram, chest x-ray , etc.
A lot has been written about how to treat heart failure. But it is very important to combine drug treatment, which is prescribed by both the doctor and the patient's adequate behavior. The patient should completely abandon such bad habits as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption. It is necessary to follow a diet with a low salt content and maintain weight at a normal level. It is also very important the presence of physical activity, which corresponds to the patient's condition. For the body, both its complete absence and overstrain are equally harmful.