What is Heart Failure?

Chronic Heart Failure

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Heart failure treatment

Treatment of heart failure depends on its cause. The overall goals of treatment are to correct underlying pathology, to relieve symptoms, to prevent a worsening of the condition, to reduce the frequency of hospitalizations, and to prolong life.

All patients with CHF receive medical treatment in the form of diuretics (“water” pills), angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, beta-blockers, or aldosterone inhibitors (all drugs that block the body’s neurohormonal system), unless they suffer from side-effects as a result of drug treatment. In most patients with CHF, an ICD device is also recommended, to treat potentially life-threatening abnormally fast heart rhythms. Patients with prolonged QRS duration and dyssynchronous contractions (which occur in about 30% of cases) receive additional Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT), a special type of pacemaker, on top of medications and ICD device implant. Most patients with heart failure however, have normal QRS duration and do not benefit from CRT treatment. For these patients, representing approximately 70% of those suffering from CHF, there was no device-based treatment available until now. The Optimizer™ System by Impulse Dynamics offers, for the first time, a solution for patients with moderate to severe heart failure and normal QRS duration.

Terminology

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