Question

The symptoms of heart failure depend on the type of cardiac dysfunction and how quickly it develops. Select ONE of the manifestations of heart failure and explain the manifestation as though you were describing it to your patient. All your patient says he knows about CHF is that "you die from it."

Answer 1

First reassure and provide psychological support to the patient that all CHF doesn't necessarily die if proper treatment is taken at the earlier stage.One of the early manifestation is shortness of breath (dyspnea)

This occurs due to the following reason

• The heart is unable to pump adequate blood to the systemic circulation
• This may lead to stagnation of the blood in the blood vessels of lungs
• As a result the blood supplied to the lungs are decreased
• This causes pooling if blood
• This leads to decrease in oxygen absorption from the blood
• The individual try to meet the oxygen demand by increased breath rate
• This if not treated at this time can lead to difficulty in breathing

A brief health education about the advancement available in the heart failure treatment and its prognosis can make the patient think in an optimistic way.