Tuesday, March 26, 2024

What Is The Life Expectancy Of Someone With Congestive Heart Failure

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Stages Of Heart Failure

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

According to statistics, every year about 550,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with heart failure. Some cardiologists describe heart failure by stages. They indicate the risk and/or severity of the condition:

  • A: No signs of structural damage to the heart or symptoms or heart failure, but you are at high risk of developing heart failure.

  • B: No signs or symptoms of heart failure, but tissue damage can be seen with imaging tests, such as .

  • C: Symptoms of heart failure and damage to the heart.

  • D: Serious signs and symptoms of heart failure.

Other doctors use a classification system called the New York Heart Association classification, or functional classification:

  • 1: You have but dont have any symptoms and you dont have to limit everyday physical activity.

  • 2: You have mild symptoms of heart disease that may slightly limit your regular physical activities.

  • 3: You experience enough symptoms to significantly limit your ability to be active. You only feel comfortable when you are resting.

  • 4: You have severe symptoms and limitations. You even have symptoms while resting.

Live With Congestive Heart Failure

If you are among the nearly six million US citizens living with the CHF, and you have known the congestive heart failure life expectancy, you should also know about the various measures you can take that will help you control the symptoms, including shortness of breath, fatigue, and peripheral edema, among others. These measures can do a great deal when it comes to reducing your chances of ending up hospitalized for the disease.

1. Take Your Prescriptions

There are many drugs that directly treat heart failure and you should consider taking them as prescribed for as long as your doctor recommends you take them. This will prolong the congestive heart life expectancy rate dramatically. Some drugs take fluid off the body, others thin the blood, others decrease blood pressure, and others contain potassium as a supplement. Many people with CHF are also taking aspirin to prevent a heart attack. See if your doctor can prescribe medications that are only taken once daily because this will be easier for you to remember and you will have a better chance of taking them as directed.

2. Reduce Sodium Intake

3. Don’t Smoke or Drink Alcohol

Tobacco smoke is high in toxins,which include carbon monoxide that can block the ability of the heart to pump oxygen through the body. In addition, alcohol can weaken the heart, lowering the congestive heart failure life expectancy rates. Excessive alcohol consumption can also result in CHF and worsening of the condition.

4. Get Daily Weights

Tips For Managing Congestive Heart Failure End

You may be asking, How can I provide comfort to my loved one as they experience the end-of-life signs of congestive heart failure? Its only natural that you as a loved one and/or caregiver will want to be as helpful as possible, and ensure that your loved one is experiencing as little pain as possible. Heres some ways you can help:

  • Communicate with the doctors and healthcare professionals: Your loved one may be too weak, or simply forget, to communicate their symptoms to the doctors and nurses. You can help by sharing this information with them in order to make sure your loved one gets what they need.
  • Provide comfort: Sometimes it is just as simple as spending time with your loved one while watching a TV show, or talking about things they love. These conversations can help in alleviating some of their depression and anxiety.
  • Help them remember to take their medicine: There will likely be various pills and medications that your loved one needs to take. You can help by assisting your loved one in staying on schedule.

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Congestive Heart Failure: Our Parting Thoughts

Congestive Heart Failure is a serious condition, no doubt. The prognosis is also grim, going by the sheer statistics. But M.D.s like Dr. Cowan and Dr. Sinatra are combining traditional healing wisdom with the latest science to improve outcomes for patients. So go ahead, give your heart and your spirit a second chance. Begin by eating right and drinking pure water. Take a walk on the grass, in the sun. And spread the love and watch it heal your heart.

Walk Barefoot On The Earth

What is a realistic expectation for life expectancy for a ...

Yet again, this seems like advice coming from hippie mumbo-jumbo. Only, the hard science is now saying that earthing or simply having bare skin contact with the earth, is one of the most potent anti-oxidants there is. The electromagnetic field of our planet has the ability to donate free ions to us, helping to reduce the viscosity of our blood and counter damage to arteries. Vigorous barefoot walking helps improve blood circulation everywhere in the body.

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When To Seek Hospice Care

Even physicians have difficulty determining life expectancy for people with end-stage heart-failure. The condition can be unpredictable, and symptoms can change. However, certain signs can indicate that hospice care would be beneficial, including:

  • frequent chest pain
  • significant fatigue or shortness of breath
  • substantial decline in ability to do daily activities, such as self-care
  • The patient has already received the best possible treatment, which are no longer working well, and the patient is not a candidate for other interventions.
  • The patient has received the best possible treatment and has decided to decline further specialized interventions.

People can be reluctant to start hospice, as they may worry it means theyre giving up or that it will hasten death. But such concerns are unfounded. In fact, patients and families often wish they had started hospice sooner, because it makes such a positive difference in their lives. And research shows that early admission to hospice results in greater satisfaction with care among patients and family caregivers.

What You Can Do

Although some risk factors of heart failure, like age, cant be modified, people with CHF can take actions to improve their long-term prognosis. The first step is to become familiar with any family history of heart disease and learn about all the possible symptoms. Don’t ignore suspicious symptoms: let your doctor know about them. Regular exercise and managing concurrent conditions can also help keep CHF under control.

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Living With Heart Failure

There are five things patients diagnosed with heart failure need to do every day at home to manage their heart failure. The following MAWDS acronym may help you remember and follow these basic steps:

  • Medications: Take your medications as prescribed by your doctor and heart care team, let them know if you dont tolerate your medications and dont run out of them.
  • Activity: Stay active every day, do what you can to keep your body strong.
  • Weight: Weigh yourself each day, recognize when changes in your weight mean you are retaining more fluid.
  • Diet: Follow your die, that means low salt and limit fluid intake .
  • Symptoms: Recognize your symptoms and know when to call for help.

What Are The Symptoms Of End

What is the life expectancy of someone with congestive heart failure?

Heart Failure: Quick Facts

1. More than 6 million U.S. adults have heart failure.

2. About half of people who develop heart failure die within 5 years of diagnosis.

3. Most people with end-stage heart failure have a life expectancy of less than 1 year.

4. The leading causes of heart failure are diseases that damage the heart, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

Heart failure worsens over time, so symptoms are most severe during the final stages. It causes fluid to build up in the body, which produces many of these symptoms:

  • Shortness of breath . In the final stages of heart failure, people feel breathless both during activity and at rest.
  • Persistent coughing or wheezing. This may produce white or pink mucus. The cough may be worse at night or when lying down.
  • Weight gain or swelling of the feet, ankles, legs, abdomen, or neck veins.
  • Tiredness, weakness.

In addition, people in the final stages of heart failure may suffer from:

  • depression, fear, insomnia, and isolation
  • anxiety about their future
  • trouble navigating the health care system

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How Long Can A 90 Year Old Live With Congestive Heart Failure

Although there have been recent improvements in congestive heart failure treatment, researchers say the prognosis for people with the disease is still bleak, with about 50% having an average life expectancy of less than five years . For those with advanced forms of heart failure , nearly 90 % die within one year .

Risk Factors For Heart Failure

Health conditions that left unrecognized or untreated will increase the lifetime risk of developing heart failure. Some of these diseases include:

  • Coronary heart disease and heart attacks
  • High blood pressure
  • Diabetes
  • Obesity

Unhealthy behaviors can also increase your risk for heart failure, especially for people who have one of the diseases listed above. Unhealthy behaviors include:

  • Smoking or using tobacco
  • Use of illegal drugs, like methamphetamines or even excessive alcohol intake
  • Eating foods high in fat, cholesterol, and sodium
  • Not getting enough physical activity

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What Are The Symptoms Of Heart Failure

There may be times that your symptoms are mild or you may not have any symptoms at all. This doesn’t mean you no longer have heart failure. Symptoms of heart failure can range from mild to severe, and may come and go.

In general, heart failure gets worse over time. As it worsens, you may have more or different signs or symptoms. It is important to let your doctor know if you have new symptoms or if your symptoms get worse.

I Decline In Clinical Status Guidelines

Congestive Heart Failure Case Study. Congestive Heart ...

These changes in clinical variables are listed in order of their likelihood to predict poor survival, the most predictive first and the least predictive last. No specific number of variables must be met, but fewer of those listed first and more of those listed last would be expected to predict longevity of six months or less.

  • Progression of disease as documented by worsening clinical status, symptoms, signs and laboratory results
  • Clinical Status
  • Recurrent or intractable infections such as pneumonia, sepsis or upper urinary tract.
  • Progressive inanition as documented by:
  • Weight loss not due to reversible causes such as depression or use of diuretics
  • Dysphagia leading to recurrent aspiration and/or inadequate oral intake documented by decreasing food portion consumption.
  • Symptoms
  • Dyspnea with increasing respiratory rate
  • Cough, intractable
  • Nausea/vomiting poorly responsive to treatment
  • Diarrhea, intractable
  • Pain requiring increasing doses of major analgesics more than briefly.
  • Signs
  • Ascites
  • Venous, arterial or lymphatic obstruction due to local progression or metastatic disease
  • Edema
  • Change in level of consciousness
  • Laboratory
  • Increasing pCO2 or decreasing pO2 or decreasing SaO2
  • Increasing calcium, creatinine or liver function studies
  • Increasing tumor markers
  • Progressively decreasing or increasing serum sodium or increasing serum potassium
  • Increasing emergency room visits, hospitalizations, or physicians visits related to hospice primary diagnosis
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    Stage D And Reduced E

    Patients with Stage D HF-rEF have advanced symptoms that do not get better with treatment. This is the final stage of heart failure.

    Stage D treatment

    The usual treatment plan for patients with Stage D heart failure includes:

    • Treatments listed in Stages A, B and C.
    • Evaluation for more advanced treatment options, including:
    • Heart transplant.
    • Research therapies.

    Heart Failure Life Expectancy Calculator

    The heart failure life expectancy calculator is a simple, yet effective, tool for predicting the 1-year and 3-year survival odds of someone with congestive heart failure.

    In the article below, we will focus on congestive heart failure/CHF prognosis, the estimates on how long can you live with congestive heart failure, and the average CHF life expectancy for a given stage of the disease.

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    What Are The Stages Of Congestive Heart Failure

    As we mentioned before, congestive heart failure is a chronic and progressive disease. Hence, it is an ailment that can and tends to aggravate over time, especially if the patient has many risk factors to develop this condition or the patient is not receiving treatment.

    There are four stages of Congestive Heart Failure, divided by the symptoms that the person has. The treatment, management, and possible outcomes vary between each one of them.

    • First-class: You wont experience any symptoms during the performance of the physical activity.
    • Second-class: Youre likely comfortable at rest, but you may experience shortness of breath, heart palpitations, and fatigue during normal physical activities.
    • Third-class: Youre likely comfortable at rest, but even mild exercise can cause symptoms like fatigue, shortness of breath, and palpitations, which produces noticeable limitation of physical activity.
    • Fourth-class: Youre unable to perform any physical activity without symptoms, which may be present even at rest.

    A patient suffering from heart failure or congestive heart failure may be able to stop or slow down the progression of the disease by making simple changes in their lifestyle, such as:

    • Cutting down smoking or drinking alcohol
    • Exercising regularly
    • Eating balanced meals to prevent obesity and other cardiovascular problems and receiving medical treatment.

    Request A Hospice Evaluation

    Living With Congestive Heart Failure

    The primary physician may recommend hospice when the time is right. But as anyone who has faced a serious illness knows, patients and family members often must act as their own advocates to receive the care they need and deserve.

    You, your loved one or your trusted physician may request an evaluation to see if hospice is an appropriate option for care.

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    How Long Can An 80 Year Old Live With Congestive Heart Failure

    In a recent study, it was reported that patients hospitalized with moderate systolic heart failure faced a median expected survival time of 2.4 years if they were aged 71 to 80 years and 1.4 years if they were aged 80 years or more. In patients with more advanced systolic dysfunction, life expectancy was even shorter.

    Congestive Heart Failure In The Elderly

    Finn Gustafsson, MD, PhDCardiology Review® Online

    Studies have shown that elderly patients with heart failure are undertreated with evidence-based therapy, such as angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and beta-blockers, although these therapeutic options appear to be effective in this age group. The risk of some side effects may be increased in elderly patients, and physicians should be aware of those when prescribing therapy. Cardiac resynchronization therapy is predicted to play a major role in future heart failure treatment, including in the elderly population.

    Readers wishing to see the figures and/or tables for this paper should consult the print version of this paper.

    Approximately 2.4 million individuals in the United States have been diagnosed with heart failure,1 and a similar number is likely to have undiagnosed heart failure. The prevalence of heart failure increases sharply with age, and it exceeds 5% among persons older than 65 years. Comparable data have been reported from Western Europe.2

    Diagnosis

    Treatment

    Diuretics

    Patients who present with gross or refractory edema may be treated successfully with combination therapy using metolazone in addition to a loop diuretic. This combination appears to be effective and safe, even in elderly patients, if electrolytes and fluid balance are adequately monitored.7

    Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers

    Beta blockers

    Aldosterone blockade

    Multidisciplinary intervention

    Prognosis

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    Section I: Cancer Diagnoses

  • Disease with distant metastases at presentation OR
  • Progression from an earlier stage of disease to metastatic disease with either:
  • a continued decline in spite of therapy
  • patient declines further disease directed therapy
  • Note: Certain cancers with poor prognoses may be hospice eligible without fulfilling the other criteria in this section.

    What You Should Know If Diagnosed With Congestive Heart Failure

    PPT

    The term heart failure can sound scary when you first hear it the word failure alone could keep you up at night. You might think to yourself, Does this mean that my heart no longer works? Thankfully, thats not the case. What it really means is that your heart is not functioning or pumping as well as it could be, and left untreated, it can cause severe damage to your internal organs. Congestive Heart Failure is a serious condition, but it doesnt have to be a death sentence.

    You may have to make some significant changes to your lifestyle going forward. Its important to understand the facts if you have a proper strategy in place and you understand the triggers, you can better manage your condition.

    If you or a loved one is diagnosed with CHF, here are a few things you should know:

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    Congestive Heart Failure And Eecp: The Natural Bypass

    EECP or Enhanced External Counter Pulsation is emerging as an alternative to conventional bypass surgery. Here, the patient lies down, while blood-pressure like cuffs are fixed to the thighs and calf muscles.

    When the heart rests between beats, the pressure cuffs inflate in sync, pushing blood back to the heart, creating fine collateral arteries to open up. The end result, usually after 35 sessions is that your heart suddenly has new arteries supplying fresh blood to it.

    It is covered by insurance in several states in the U.S. and eecp.com can help you locate a therapy center near you and also determine if you are a fit candidate to receive the therapy. Even if you had to pay the $5,000 dollars out of pocket, says Dr. Cowan, in his book, it is certainly far safer than having your chest cracked open.

    What Are The Last Signs Of Congestive Heart Failure

    Some doctors and health care providers may talk about the last signs or end-of-life signs of congestive heart failure. These are the symptoms that occur when patients are nearing the end and have little chance of recovery.

  • Dyspnea The shortness of breath experienced throughout the stages of CHF worsens and is present during rest.
  • Chronic coughing This shortness of breath is often accompanied by a chronic cough.
  • Increased heart rate.
  • Edema the legs begin to swell up as fluid builds in the muscles.
  • Confusion/Delirium end-of-life patients frequently deal with this sense of disorientation
  • Loss of appetite again, this is common in end-of-life care.
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