Heart FaIlure and Rhythm DIsorder

What is Heart Failure?

It would be useful to state as preliminary information that heart failure is not a disease. Heart failure can be defined as a composite syndrome consisting of symptoms and physical findings.

Heart failure means that the heart is unable to adequately pump oxygen and nutrient-rich blood, which is necessary for body cells, and is therefore weakened. When the heart is unable to supply the tissues with enough oxygen to meet their metabolic needs, heart failure occurs and is associated with many health problems.

Heart failure can occur for many reasons, such as stenosis of the heart vessels, palpitations, high blood pressure, heart attack, but it can also occur without any cause. Even if all body functions are normal, sudden weakness in the heart muscle can lead to heart failure. This condition is called cardiomyopathy, a disorder of the heart muscle that causes heart failure. In cardiomyopathy, the heart cavities gradually enlarge, leading to heart failure. This disease often occurs after previous viral infections, even if everything is in normal values when it occurs.

What are the Risk Factors for Heart Failure?

Heart failure is a life-threatening and dangerous dysfunction that is especially common in patients over the age of 65. According to research, one in five people, regardless of gender, is at risk of developing heart failure. In general, we can list the risk factors that may cause heart failure as follows:

• Coronary heart disease: Today, coronary heart disease is recognised as the main cause of heart failure. We can even say that heart failure mostly occurs after a heart attack. However, heart failure due to coronary heart disease can also occur without a heart attack.
• High blood pressure (hypertension); high blood pressure in the heart can reach dangerous levels with hypertension disease and can bring heart failure.
• Side effects of some medications; heart failure may occur as a result of the side effects of some cancer drugs on the body.
• Some toxins; In cases such as excessive alcohol consumption, heart failure may occur due to some toxins.
• Some infections; Conditions such as inflammation of the heart muscle due to some viruses can lead to heart failure.
• Some metabolic causes; diseases such as diabetes can cause heart failure.
• Obesity; excessive obesity due to obesity can cause heart failure.
• Heart rhythm disorders; conditions such as having a very fast or very slow heart rate can lead to predisposition to heart failure and heart failure.
• Renal failure
• Anaemia
• Over or under functioning of the thyroid gland

In addition, a number of other factors increase the risk of heart diseases:

• Valvular heart disease
• Diseases or inflammation of the heart muscle
• Congenital heart diseases

In order to prevent heart failure, early diagnosis and early treatment can be effective in diseases in these basic risk factors that cause heart failure.

What are the Symptoms of Heart Failure?

In heart failure diseases, timely diagnosis is important to slow down the course of the disease. However, most of the symptoms of heart failure do not develop distinctive symptoms and may be overlooked for these reasons.

Most of the symptoms of heart failure are due to water and salt retention. These include:

• Shortness of breath
• Chest pain and palpitations
• Swelling in the legs and abdomen
• Waking up at night due to shortness of breath, increasing inability to breathe to wake up from sleep
• Quick fatigue
• Intermittent breathing
• The need to sleep on a high pillow

These symptoms are indications of heart failure but are not very distinctive. In this respect, we need to address the nature of the symptoms, i.e. the extent of their impact on our lives.