What Is Congestive Heart Failure?
The heart is a muscle that vigorously contracts and pumps blood through the body. Some disease processes can weaken the heart muscle and diminish its ability to contract. This failure of the heart’s forward pumping action results in the backup of blood in various tissues. When the right ventricle fails, blood backs up in the extremeties (usually the legs). This is referred to as “right heart failure.” Left ventricular failure results in blood “backing up” in the lungs, causing shortness of breath and left-sided “congestive heart failure.
Heart disease refers to a condition where there is an abnormality of the heart. Heart failure exists when the heart is no longer able to meet the circulatory needs of the body. Signs of heart failure include cough, edema, and rapid breathing. Signs of heart failure may be more pronounced in active animals as they are more likely to place a demand on their cardiovascular systems whereas the problem may go undetected in more sedentary pets.
Heart failure is a serious disorder for everyone. It is a chronic, long-term condition, although it can sometimes develop suddenly. The congestive heart failure is a condition in which the heart’s function as a pump is inadequate to deliver oxygen rich blood to the body. Common causes of heart failure include myocardial infarction and other forms of ischemic heart disease, hypertension, valvular heart disease, and cardiomyopathy.
Congestive Heart Failure results from an enlargement (dilation) of the left ventricle or the main pumping chamber of the heart and a loss of the heart’s effective pumping action. There are two types of heart failure. The first type involves an overall dilation of the left ventricle. This type of heart failure is typically not caused by a heart attack. The second type involves a more localized dilation and is caused by a heart attack that results in death of an area of heart tissue called the myocardium.
Congestive heart failure, or CHF, refers to the failure of the heart to perform its main function: to pump blood throughout the body. It occurs when the flow of blood, or cardiac output, from the heart decreases, or fluids back up or “congest” within the heart, or both. Insufficient cardiac output can only be considered congestive heart failure if the heart is receiving enough blood in the first place. Congestive heart failure is the eventual result of any number of numerous cardiac conditions that impede the heart’s ability to pump blood. Therefore, it is a symptom of underlying disorders which require treatment. The list of these associated disorders is lengthy and some of them may be present without a patient’s knowledge. Some of the most common are high blood pressure, or hypertension, which forces the heart to pump against increased resistance to meet demand; ischemia, a condition stemming from coronary artery disease (CAD) in which the heart muscle receives insufficient oxygen an
