Heart Failure
What is heart failure?
Heart failure describes when your heart is damaged and not pumping blood around your body effectively. Importantly, it doesn’t mean your heart is about to stop or fail completely. Heart failure can be mostly right-sided (supplies blood to the lungs to get oxygen) or left-sided (supplies oxygenated blood to the rest of the body) but it usually affects both sides of the heart.
Heart failure is common in Australia, especially among older people. While it is a serious condition, many people live with heart failure for many years, depending on their age, general health and the underlying cause.
What causes heart failure?
There are many different causes of heart failure. It often develops when the heart is damaged by a heart attack or other health problems. Besides heart attack, conditions that can lead to heart failure include:
Hypertension (high blood pressure)
Cardiomyopathy (disease of the heart muscle)
Myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle, usually from an infection)
Heart valve or heart rhythm problems
Chronic lung disease
Overactive or underactive thyroid
Severe chronic kidney disease
Heart abnormalities present at birth (congenital heart disease)
Side effects of treatments such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy
The damage usually presents in one of two ways: heart stiffening (when the heart doesn’t fill with blood as well) or heart weakening (when the heart doesn’t pump as well).
What are the symptoms of heart failure?
When the heart doesn’t pump efficiently, the body tries to compensate in other ways. These changes, while helpful at first, can be very damaging in the long term. Some symptoms or conditions associated with heart failure include:
Increased heart rate – when the heart doesn’t pump efficiently, it tries to compensate by beating faster, which can eventually result in enlargement of the heart (hypertrophy).
Kidney failure – the kidneys may start to retain salt and water to increase the amount of blood in the circulation. Eventually the kidneys and liver may stop working properly due to poor blood flow and fluid build-up in the body.
Damage to heart muscle – fluid retention can stretch (dilate) the heart muscle; high pressure or enlargement of the heart can lead to problems with the heart valves; arrhythmias (abnormal heart rhythms) can also develop.
How do you diagnose heart failure?
We can find out a lot about your heart by simply listening to your heart and breathing; and checking your legs and abdomen for excess fluid. Monitoring your weight over time can also help us work out if there is excess fluid build-up. The following tests may be used to help diagnose heart failure and its cause.
Electrocardiogram (ECG) – to record your heart’s electrical activity and detect signs of heart failure such as heart enlargement.
Chest X-ray – to check the size of the heart and any fluid in the lungs
Blood tests – to help determine the cause and severity of heart failure and check for complications
Echocardiogram (echo) – (heart ultrasound) to show the size of the heart chambers and how effectively the heart is pumping blood.
How do you treat heart failure?
It’s important to treat the underlying cause of your heart failure, as well as trying to improve the pumping ability of your heart. Medicines and lifestyle changes can help relieve the symptoms, while implantable devices and surgical treatments may help improve heart function.
We’ll discuss the best options for you based on your condition and symptoms at your consultation.