Cardiomyopathy: Congestive Heart Failure

Heart failure may convey that the heart isn’t working anymore, but what it really means is that the heart isn’t pumping as well as it should be (REF). Heart failure is a chronic, progressive condition in which the heart muscle is unable to pump enough blood through to meet the body’s needs for blood and oxygen (REF). At first, the heart tries to make up for this by enlarging, developing more muscle mass, and pumping faster. As this happens, the blood vessels narrow to keep blood pressure up and the body diverts blood away from less important tissues and organs to maintain flow to the heart and brain (REF). Eventually, the body and heart cannot keep up and the patient begins to feel fatigue, breathing problems, weight gain with swelling in the feet, legs, ankles or stomach, and other symptoms that eventually leads to a hospital visit. The body’s coping mechanisms give us better understanding on why many are unaware of their condition until years after the heart declines (REF).

The prevalence of congestive heart failure is on the increase both in the United States and all over the world, and it is the leading cause of hospitalization in the elderly population. Congestive heart failure is a progressive disease generally seen in the elderly, which if not properly managed, can lead to repeated hospital admissions or death. Heart failure means that the heart muscle is weakened. A weakened heart muscle may not be strong enough to pump an adequate amount of blood out of its chambers. To compensate for its diminished pumping capacity, the heart may enlarge. Commonly, the heart's pumping inefficiency causes a buildup of blood in the

Heart failure is a chronic, progressive condition in which the heart muscle is unable to pump enough blood through to meet the body 's needs for blood and oxygen. Basically, the heart can 't keep up with its workload. American Heart Association Statistics (2016) reveals that heart failure accounts for 36% of cardiovascular disease deaths. Projections report a 46% increase in the prevalence of Heart Failure (HF) by 2030 by affecting over 8 million people above 18 years with the disease. Healthy People 2020 goals are focused on attaining high quality longer lives free of preventable diseases, promotion of quality of life, healthy development and healthy behaviors across all stages of life (Healthy People 2020, 2015).

Congestive cardiac failure, also known as heart failure, occurs when the heart is weak and unable to sufficiently supply blood the body needs to function. Heart failure can often be successfully treated with

Heart Failure is a progressive heart disease when the muscle of the heart is weakened so that it cannot pump blood as it should; the blood backs up into the blood vessels around the lungs and the other parts of the body (NHS Choice, 2015). In heart failure, the heart is not able to maintain a normal range cardiac output to meet the metabolic needs of the body (Kemp and Conte, 2012). Heart failure is a major worldwide public health problem, it is the end stage of heart disease and it could lead to high mortality. At present, heart failure is usually associated with old age, given the dramatic increase in the population of older people (ACCF/AHA, 2013). In the USA, there are about 5.7 million adults who have heart failure, about half of the people die within 5 years of diagnosis, and it costs the nation an estimated $30.7 billion each year (ACCF/AHA, 2013).

Nearly 5.1 million people in the United States have been diagnosed with heart failure. Yet so many people don’t have a clue what it is until they have been diagnosed with it. Congestive Heart Failure, or CHF, is a disease that has many symptoms, can be tested and treated, has several causes, and can be avoided.

Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a condition that occurs when the heart is unable to pump blood with enough force to circulate it throughout the body (VanMeter &

Mr. Javier Escobar, U.S Army Veteran, 50-year-old Latino male and divorced claiming to “not having anyone in his life due to Combat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”. Mr. Escobar is a newly patient diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure (CHF). Patient claims to smoke 1 pack of cigarettes a day, also the consumption of 1 bottle (750mls) per night of alcohol. Congestive Heart Failure is due to Chronic high blood pressure that puts great stress on the heart muscle. The muscle of the heart weakens and fails to push the normal amount of blood around the body leading to Congestive Heart Failure. There are multiple symptoms that could by identified before heart failure such as anxiety, restlessness, cyanotic (blue

Congestive Heart Failure is when the heart's pumping power is weaker than normal. It does not mean the heart has stopped working. The blood moves through the heart and body at a slower rate, and pressure in the heart increases. This means; the heart cannot pump enough oxygen and nutrients to meet the body's needs. The chambers of the heart respond by stretching to hold more blood to pump through the body or by becoming more stiff and thickened. This only keeps the blood moving for a short while. The heart muscle walls weaken and are unable to pump as strongly. This makes the kidneys respond by causing the body to retain fluid and sodium. When the body builds up with fluids, it becomes congested. Many conditions can cause heart

So what is congestive heart failure? A simple definition is the heart 's inability to pump blood to the rest of the body but it goes way beyond that. The body’s natural mechanisms try to compensate for the changes that

Congestive heart failure describes the inability or failure (chronic, progressive condition) of the heart to adequately meet the needs of organs and tissues for oxygen and nutrients. This decrease in cardiac output, the amount of blood that the heart pumps, is not adequate to circulate the blood returning to the heart from the body and lungs, causing fluid (mainly water) to leak from capillary blood vessels. This leads to the symptoms that may include shortness of breath, weakness, and swelling. Many disease processes can impair the pumping efficiency of the heart to cause congestive heart failure. In the United States, the most common causes of congestive heart failure are:

Congestive heart failure is an older name for heart failure. Congestive heart failure takes place when the heart is unable to maintain an adequate circulation of blood in the bodily tissues or to pump out the venous blood returned to it by the veins (Merriam-Webster). The heart is split into two distinct pumping structures, the right side of the heart and the left side of the heart. Appropriate cardiac performance involves each ventricle to extract even quantities of blood over intervals. If the volume of blood reimbursed to the heart develops more than both ventricles can manage, the heart can no longer be an efficient pump.

Congestive heart failure is when the heart weakens and the heart cannot pump enough blood to the body, or enough oxygen to the lungs. The picture shows a healthy heart and the proper flow and a heart that has the condition congestive heart failure. You can see that the heart on the left is slightly bigger in a sense. The condition narrows the arteries in the heart causing it hard to pump blood throughout the body. The symptoms of CHF: shortness of breath when laying down, fatique and weakness, edema (swelling of any organ or body

"Congestive Heart Failure is the Inability of the heart to maintain the demands of pumping blood with normal efficiency to other organs, such as the brain, liver, and kidneys" (Congestive heart failure, 2008). Without the heart carrying out its functions, all the organs in the body would be deprived of sufficient blood to do its work, the kidney will no longer filter its blood leading to fluid accumulation in areas such as the lungs, liver, legs, and surrounding eye, when this happens, it is called congestive heart failure. "Cardiomyopathy is a situation where there are changes in the heart muscle which prevent part or all the heart from contracting normally" ("Cardiomyopathy,” 2013). This situation could be acquired or inherited problem of the heart muscles resulting in thickness or expansion of the heart making it difficult to pump required blood that the body needed. In this paper, the writer would have the opportunity to discuss the best approach to care that Mr. P battling cardiomyopathy and CHF deserve, the treatment and education he needed that would help him, the method of education, and the teaching care plan.

The major causes of diastolic heart failure are hypertension-induced myocardial hypertrophy and myocardial ischemia-induced ventricular transformation (coronary artery disease). Hypertrophy and ischemia cause a decreased ability of the myocytes to actively pump calcium from the cytosol, resulting in impaired relaxation. Some of the other causes are aortic valvular disease and cardiomyopathies. Diabetes can also lead to diastolic heart failure (Huether and McCune 2012). Other risk factors for this disease are chronic kidney disease, obstructive sleep apnea, and older age. There are two types of the heart failure: systolic heart failure and diastolic heart failure. In systolic heart failure, the left ventricle has difficulty contracting and ejecting blood into the circulation, which causes reduced left ventricular fraction. On the other hand, diastolic heart failure has a slow and delayed relaxation and increased chamber rigidity, which then causes inadequate filling of blood and