Sunday, March 24, 2024

How Long To Live With Congestive Heart Failure

Don't Miss

What Should I Do If I Have Chronic Heart Failure

Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) Life Expectancy – Google vs. Reality

Perhaps the best thing you can do for your kidneys is to take measures to prevent chronic heart failure. Stick to a heart-healthy diet. Keep your weight at a medically acceptable level. Do not smoke. Limit drinking. Do scheduled sessions of aerobic exercise and strength training. Drink at least six cups of water a day.

Managing Congestive Heart Failure: How To Live Longer And Better With Congestive Heart Failure

The term heart failure is something of a misnomer. It makes it sound like the heart has stopped working, but that isnt really the case. What congestive heart failure means is that the heart isnt pumping efficiently enough to keep up with the bodys needs. Heart inefficiency might be a better term. With the proper treatment and lifestyle changes, many people with congestive heart failure can lead active lives for many years.

Read Also: How Does Exercise Affect Heart Rate

Early Attention To Heart Disease

Congestive heart failure is one of the leading causes of death in the elderly and is not curable. The best course is to avoid or treat early known causes of the disease to prevent or limit damage to the heart. See your doctor if you notice early signs that might indicate CHF such as shortness of breath or fluid in your legs.

Don’t Miss: Why Do Av Nodal Cells Not Determine The Heart Rate

Can A Patient With Heart Failure Improve Their Kidney Function

However, it is clear that not all patients with heart failure and decreased kidney function have hypotension or a reduction in cardiac output , many patients with hypotension do not have reduced kidney function, and, furthermore, increasing reduced cardiac output does not necessarily materially improve kidney outcomes .

Life Expectancy An Individual Matter

How Long Can A Person Live With Congestive Heart Failure?

“The exact reasons for this incongruity are unknown but they may reflect hope or may result from inadequate communication between clinicians and their patients about prognosis,” write the researchers. “Because differences in expectations about prognosis could affect decision making regarding advanced therapies and end-of-life planning, further research into both the extent and the underlying causes of these differences is warranted.”

In an editorial that accompanies the study, Clyde W. Yancy, MD, of Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, writes that predicting life expectancy in people with heart failure is not an exact science and many questions remain about clinical prediction models.

Therefore, until these issues are fully addressed, people should embrace an individualized decision-making process regarding end-of-life care guided by physician input.

Read Also: Can Ibs Cause Heart Palpitations

Hypertension Or High Blood Pressure

Another cause of congestive heart failure is high blood pressure or hypertension. If you have high blood pressure, your heart muscle works extra hard to pump blood through your body.

As time passes, because of the overexertion, the muscles in your heart can become too weak or too stiff to properly circulate blood to your body. If you have high blood pressure, your heart muscle workextra hard to pump blood through your body.

Outlook For Heart Failure

Heart failure is a serious long-term condition that’ll usually continue to get slowly worse over time.

It can severely limit the activities you’re able to do and is often eventually fatal.

But it’s very difficult to tell how the condition will progress on an individual basis.

It’s very unpredictable. Lots of people remain stable for many years, while in some cases it may get worse quickly.

Also Check: Typical Resting Heart Rate For A Healthy Individual

Congestive Heart Failure Prognosis And Progression Stages

The ACC/AHA Guidelines specify four stages of HF, indirectly determining how long can a person live with congestive heart failure, depending on the given phase of the disease.

Stage
  • General health .

We can slow down the progression of the disease by:

Find out your patient’sHEART score for cardiovascular risk.

When Should I Ask For Help

Congestive Heart Failure – how long can a person live with congestive heart failure?

If you feel you need more support to support the patient, speak to their GP, cardiology team or specialist team.

Some parts of the country have specialist heart failure nurses who can be involved in a persons end of life care, so you may want to see if there is one covering your locality. They can visit people at home, in hospital or a hospice and give the person and their family support and guidance.

If the persons heart failure is due to an inherited heart condition such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, their family may have concerns about what the future holds for themselves. Give the family an opportunity to voice their worries and, if its appropriate, mention the possibility of referring immediate family members to a clinic which specialises in inherited heart conditions. This may be done when the person was initially diagnosed.

Inherited heart conditions services offer specialist assessment and investigations, genetic counselling and testing. GPs can refer to this service. Additionally signpost your patient to the British Heart Foundation Genetic Information Service , which offers information and support and helps with referrals.

Don’t Miss: Symptoms Of Weak Heart Valves

Cardiac Cachexia Or Anorexia

Cardiac cachexia or anorexia is characterised by loss of appetite, profound weight loss and loss of muscle and fat tissue. You could suggest the person tries eating small, frequent meals. You should consider high calorie, high protein food, and supplement drinks. There are more tips on our page about hydration and nutrition. A dietitian may be able to provide you and your patient with further guidance.

How Can Heart Failure Affect People Towards The End Of Life

At any stage of someone’s illness, heart failure can have a significant psychological impact on a person. People experience different emotions, including anger, sadness and worry. Life may feel very up and down, with good days and bad days. People can feel low about their symptoms and limitations, or they may feel that they lack control over their life. It can be particularly shocking for someone if they have been told their outlook is poor.

Symptoms can fluctuate at the advanced stage of heart failure, making it hard to estimate prognosis . This can make it difficult to know how and when to discuss the future and find out how someone would like to be cared for at the end of their life.

People with heart failure are more likely to have renal failure. Renal failure can make prescribing certain medications difficult which can, lead to more symptoms and discomfort.

You May Like: Does Flonase Help With Shortness Of Breath

How To Use The Congestive Heart Failure Life Expectancy Calculator

To find a person’s survival odds with our heart failure life expectancy calculator, you’ll need the exact values of:

  • The age of the patient
  • The patient’s weight/height, or BMI
  • Their creatinine levels – creatinine is a product of the muscles’ metabolism. It is found at increased levels when the kidneys do not work properly
  • Ejection Fraction – the amount of blood that is pushed out of the heart during systole, out of the total amount of blood in the heart and
  • Systolic blood pressure – the larger value of the blood pressure measurement made during a routine blood pressure check-up, given in mmHg.

In addition, you need to answer the following questions:

  • What’s your patient’s sex?
  • Does your patient take angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors , for example, captopril, or angiotensin II receptor blockers ?
  • Does your patient take beta-blockers, for example, propranolol, metoprolol, bisoprolol?
  • Was your patients heart failure diagnosed 18 months ago?
  • Does your patient still smoke? Or have they managed to quit?
  • Does your patient suffer from diabetes?
  • Reversing Congestive Heart Failure

    Congestive Heart Failure by Kanviss Pena

    It is possible to reverse congestive heart failure. Once the condition of your heart is assessed, the physician will take further steps to treat your congestive heart failure and start appropriate treatment.

    This treatment starts with medications and then other procedures may be done to attempt to help the heart get stronger. There are a lot of medications available that will help in improving the quality of your life.

    Cardiac viability tests are non-invasive tests that should be done initially to asses if the heart muscle is still alive and if the hearts condition is reversible. Cardiac viability tests should be done prior to any invasive procedures, to make sure the heart condition is reversible and to see if the invasive procedure is truly needed.

    For reversal of this disease, early diagnosis is very important.

    Cardiac PET provides one of the best and easiest ways to assess for cardiac viability in all individuals.

    Also Check: What Heart Chamber Pushes Blood Through The Aortic Semilunar Valve

    Heart Failure: Prognosis And Life Expectancy

    If you have been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, you may have many questions, such as can heart failure be treated, what are the stages of heart failure, and what is the prognosis? The term heart failure can be misleading because when we hear the word failure, we tend to think that something stops working altogether. This isnt the case with heart failure. A diagnosis of heart failure means your heart isnt pumping blood as well as it should be. However, it is a chronic progressive condition that has no cure.

    Heart failure is very common, affecting almost 6 million people in the United States. It can occur at any age, even in children, although it tends to affect older people than any other group. There is no cure for heart failure, but treatments can help prolong life and quality of life. Learn more about heart failure survival rates, and what you might do to help improve your odds of living with .

    How Do They Remove Fluid From Congestive Heart Failure

    The current in-hospital treatment for CHF involves removal of excess fluid with diuretic medication and/or ultrafiltration in which a machine bypasses the kidneys and filters water and salt from the body. However, these treatments can have unwanted side effects such as low blood pressure and worsening kidney function.

    Also Check: Can This 10 Second Trick Prevent Your Heart Attack

    Drink The Purest Mineral

    For our blood to be nourishing and pure, the water we drink needs to be free of impurities and chemicals like fluoride. Several Reverse Osmosis filters that do this job unfortunately also remove vital minerals from the water, so we need to re-mineralize our water. Structuring the water sounds exotic, but simply involves making sure the water passes through a filter that helps form a vortex or spiral that literally makes the water come back to life, as if it were from a natural spring.

    Dr. Gerald Pollack, over at University of Washington has discovered that when blood is structured in this way, it packs all the essential nutrition safely and helps the blood flow efficiently. You can see his amazing explanation of why water is so critical to human life and heart health here. If you live in the U.S., you can find more information on how to transform your ordinary tap water into a living, heart-health supporting liquid here.

    Heart Failure Survival Rates

    5 Tips for Living with Congestive Heart Failure (CHF)

    The survival rates from heart failure have been improving over the years. The improvement is slow, but gradual. Clinicians measure overall patient survival from a disease by comparing large groups of people with the disease to large groups of the same age range without it. For example, a 1-year survival rate of 90% is good. It means people with the disease are 90% as likely as people without the disease to be alive for at least one year after diagnosis. For heart failure, the 1-year survival rate rose from 74% in 2000 to about 81% in 2016. The 5-year survival rate increased from 41% to 48%, and the 10-year survival rate rose from about 20% to 26%.

    Keep in mind prognosis and life expectancy information is based on data registries from several years ago . Someone diagnosed with heart failure today may have a better prognosis because heart failure treatment, including , improves with time.

    If you or a loved one has heart failure and you would like to know more about your case, ask your doctor how your age, overall health, and treatment affect your prognosis and life expectancy. Knowing what to expect can help you make plans for the time you have.

    Read Also: Left Ventricular Systolic Dysfunction Symptoms

    Recognizing Depression And Anxiety

    Everyone feels anxious or blue some of the time. But if these feelings persist and they interfere with your ability to do and enjoy daily activities, or if your relationships are affected, you should seek help. People who are depressed often feel tired and have no energy. They may lose interest in sex, have trouble sleeping and lose their appetite. Although fatigue and loss of appetite are also common symptoms of Heart Failure, they are more likely due to depression if accompanied by any of the symptoms listed on the next page. You may be depressed if you have any of the following symptoms for more than 2 weeks:

    • Excessive sleepiness
    • Feeling keyed up or always on edge
    • Restlessness
    • Feeling shaky

    Many people in our society feel there is some stigma associated with having emotional problems like depression or anxiety. As a result, they may be reluctant to talk to anyone about how they are feeling. However, having emotional problems is nothing to be ashamed about. It is important to recognize and treat depression and anxiety. If you are having difficulty coping with feelings about Heart Failure, you should seek help and support. In other words, if depression and anxiety are interfering with your life or causing distress, it is important for you to seek help from your doctor or nurse.

    Symptoms Of Congestive Heart Failure

    The symptoms of congestive heart failure are also associated with other diseases and ailments.

    In the early stages of congestive heart failure, there is a possibility that you might not feel any changes or symptoms. But as the disease progresses, symptoms appear.

    Following symptoms would indicate a person has congestive heart failure:

    Don’t Miss: Can Ibs Cause Heart Palpitations

    Prognosis At Different Ages

    Its been a widely accepted clinical opinion for many years that younger people diagnosed with CHF have a better prognosis than older people. There is some evidence to support this theory.

    Older people with advanced CHF have a more difficult prognosis. In these cases, its less common to live beyond 1 year post-diagnosis. This could also be because invasive procedures to help the problem arent plausible at a certain age.

    When To Get Medical Advice

    Why does it say that heart failure patients die in 5 years ...

    See a GP if you experience persistent or gradually worsening symptoms of heart failure.

    Call 999 for an ambulance or go to your nearest A& E department as soon as possible if you have sudden or very severe symptoms.

    A number of tests can be used to help check how well your heart is working, including blood tests, an ECG and an echocardiogram.

    Read Also: Claritin Heart Racing

    How Is Heart Failure Treated/managed

    Treatment of heart failure depends on the underlying cause and this will direct the main treatment to prevent further deterioration. Heart failure can be cured if it has a treatable cause.

    If the causes are due to coronary heart disease then the patient may require coronary stents or . If there is a heart valve cause, then the defective valve will need surgery to repair or replace the valve.

    All heart failure patients will need:

    • Lifestyle changes including eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly and stopping smoking and watching fluid intake and reduce alcohol consumption.
    • Medicine a range of medicines can help many people need to take three to four different types which have evidence to show they strengthen the heart and improve prognosis. This includes beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, ARNI and SGLT2 inhibitors. Other medicines, such as diuretics, may be used to help with the symptoms.

    In cases where patients are seen to be experiencing continued deteriorating heart function despite the best and optimal medication, the following may be considered:

    • Cardiac resynchronising therapy In very severe heart failure conditions, a specialised type of pacemaker has shown to benefit and improve symptoms as well as prolonging life by resynchronising the contractility of the two main pumping chambers of the heart.
    • Cardiac transplant If there is no scope for recovery and the condition deteriorates then in suitable patients, a heart transplant may be considered.

    How Is Heart Failure Diagnosed

    To make the diagnosis of Heart Failure the following should be done:

    • Health History.
    • Physical Exam.
    • Chest X-Rayto evaluate the size and shape of the heart and detect any fluid in the lungs.
    • EKGto determine heart rhythm and search for previous heart damage or thickened heart muscle.
    • Blood Test for BNPa hormone made when the heart is overworked.
    • Measure Ejection Fraction to gauge effectiveness of the pumping action of the heart. The EF can be determined with an echocardiogram, nuclear scan or angiogram.

    Also Check: Flonase And Heart Palpitations

    How Does A Healthy Heart Work

    The heart is a muscle about the size of your fist. The hearts job is to pump blood, rich in oxygen and nutrients, to all parts of your body. The left ventricle is the main pumping chamber. In a normal heart, the left ventricle ejects 50% or more of its blood volume out into circulation. This percentage is called the ejection fraction or EF.

    • Heart Failure is not a disease.
    • Heart Failure is the name used to describe a set of symptoms.
    • Heart Failure is caused by diseases that affect the ability of the heart to pump blood.

    More articles

    Popular Articles