Take care of Your Heart

Heart failure and its symptoms.
The term 'Heart Failure' refers to the diminished ability of the heart to keep up with its workload it can continue to pump efficiently enough to keep up with the demands of the body's organs for oxygen rich blood. In US about 4 lakh new case of heart failure are diagnosed yearly and 70 percent of people with the heart failure die of the disease. When the heart's efficiency decreases the strengh of the heart's contractions diminish, reducing the amount of blood pumped out into the body's tissues. In addition, he myocardium may have trouble emptying out all of the blood it receives, causing the ventricles the pumping chambers to retain too much fluid and, as a result, to become enlarged.
Signs and symptoms:
Although patients with heart failure may have no symptoms at first, several problems, can arise as the syndrome progresses. Th signs and symptoms of heart failure generally fall into two categories, forward failure and backward failure.
The symptoms of forward failure are a product of poor cardiac output, the heart's inability to pump the blood with sufficient force to the body's tissues, then include weakness fatigue, and a general sense of feeling unwell. The symptom of backward failure are a product of fluid congestion in the tissues; they include breathlessness, cough, and swelling in the feet, ankles, legs or stomach. In congestive heart failure, the weakened heart cannot keep fluids moving through the body, so fluid pools, especially in the lungs, causing breathing difficulties. Edema, or swelling. in the legs, ankles, and feet and as cites or swelling in the abdomen, can also result. When fluid accumulates, weight gain can occur as well. The most common causes of heart failure are: Coronary Artery disease (CAD), Previous myocardial infarction (heart attack), Hypertension, Valve disease, Congenital heart disease, Cardiomyopathy, a disease of the myocardium, Endocarditic, Myocarditis.