About 22 million people or more have been living with congestive heart failure (CHF) -- according to World Health Organization. In other words, there are a lot of death cases due to heart disease. Therefore today there are also a lot of researches to find a satisfied answer of congestive heart failure prognosis!
More researches will encourage to the development of treatments to get a better chance of congestive heart failure prognosis. If you have CHF, your treatment is usually closely associated to the severity of your heart failure condition. The treatments may include; medications, helpful therapies, or even certain surgeries if necessary.
Causes and treatments of CHF
Before talking more about congestive heart failure prognosis, you may need to know also about the causes of the disease.
There are many conditions that can damage the performance of heart muscles, which finally will lead to a heart failure. Some conditions that can impair the heart muscles may include:
- Conditions that can lead to ‘an overwork to the heart’, particularly such as; diabetes, thyroid disease, heart defect (it usually presents at birth), and high levels of blood pressure. Additionally, the chance of a heart failure is higher when some of these conditions or diseases are present at once!S
- Suddenly blocked of coronary artery! This condition is often associated with a heart attack! It can give serious damaged heart muscles.
- The heart muscles also become damaged due to drug abuse, alcohol, or other infections & bad lifestyles. Cardiomyopathy is usually the term used to describe these conditions.
- CAD (Coronary Artery Disease), it can decrease significantly the performance of arteries to provide a constant blood flow to the heart (particularly for providing adequate O2 to the heart).
And for the treatments of congestive heart failure, one of the easiest options is changes in lifestyle and tight control of the medication! A positive change in lifestyle can give a significant contribution to help managing the heart failure.
The next advanced treatments are usually closely dependent to the progress of your symptoms, performance of your heart muscles (how well they are), and how well your condition to follow and respond the treatment plan.
Always remember that your treatment is a team effort which consists of you, your nurse & doctor, your pharmacist, your dietitian, your exercise specialist, and so on -- But you are the most vital player of your team! So, the successful of the treatment is closely dependent on ‘YOU’.
Overall, the major goals of the treatment is purposed to decrease the risk of disease progression, help improving the quality of your life with heart failure, and lessen the symptoms. Read also a related article about CHF life expectancy!
What else you need to know about congestive heart failure prognosis?
As mentioned before, in recently years there are more effective developed medications to improve the heart failure prognosis! Medications are still the major issues of therapy. So, what else you should know?
- Sophisticated & new treatments will allow people with CHF to live longer.
- There are now available a better technology of implantable defibrillators & pacemakers for controlling the disease.
- There are also new technologies of temporary mechanical hearts & heart transplants. Keep contact with your doctor to get the newest successful treatments to treat congestive heart failure.
-- Image credit to ‘Getty Images’
