Current Approach To Heart Failure

This book is intended to be a link between guidelines and clinical practice, a complementary tool to help physicians to be well informed regarding the important field of heart failure. It will be a useful tool for professionals from all the fields of cardiology: non-invasive cardiology, interventional cardiology, electrophysiology and cardiovascular imaging. The topic of heart failure is continuously changing, with new important information being added constantly. The pathophysiology is better understood and there is a trend for a better characterization of special groups of population, such as oncologic patients with heart failure. The new imaging techniques have become valuable tools for the diagnosis of heart failure, while pharmacological and novel cell and gene treatments have evolved enormously. The challenge for the practitioners is making the right selection of treatment strategy that best fits a patient. This book presents detailed information on the indications, selection and mechanism of action of these treatments, whether they be mechanical circulatory devices or pharmacological treatments. The contemporary pharmacological and non-pharmacological management of heart failure has the main target of early prevention of disease progression and the avoidance of heart transplant. In the era of shortage of donors, prevention is the mainstay of the therapeutic strategy, and this is the main philosophy of our book.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) uses a screening tool called the Listing of Impairments to identify claimants who are so severely impaired that they cannot work at all and thus immediately qualify for benefits. In this report, the IOM makes several recommendations for improving SSA's capacity to determine disability benefits more quickly and efficiently using the Listings.

For many years, there has been a great deal of work done on chronic congestive heart failure while acute heart failure has been considered a difficult to handle and hopeless syndrome. However, in recent years acute heart failure has become a growing area of study and this is the first book to cover extensively the diagnosis and management of this complex condition. The book reflects the considerable amounts of new data reported and many new concepts which have been proposed in the last 3-4 years looking at the epidemiology, diagnostic and treatment of acute heart failure.

This open access book presents a comprehensive overview of dilated cardiomyopathy, providing readers with practical guidelines for its clinical management. The first part of the book analyzes in detail the disease’s pathophysiology, its diagnostic work up as well as the prognostic stratification, and illustrates the role of genetics and gene-environment interaction. The second part presents current and future treatment options, highlighting the importance of long-term and individualized treatments and follow-up. Furthermore, it discusses open issues, such as the apparent healing phenomenon, the early prognosis of arrhythmic events or the use of genetic testing in clinical practice. Offering a multidisciplinary approach for optimizing the clinical management of DCM, this book is an invaluable aid not only for the clinical cardiologists, but for all physicians involved in the care of this challenging disease.

This is a highly visual, case-based approach that covers the spectrum of the clinical presentation of heart failure. Each chapter revolves around one or more cases that best represent the diagnosis and treatment of a specific type of heart failure. The book encompasses newly diagnosed cases of heart failure, optimizing therapy for patients with known heart failure, heart failure associated with a variety of cardiac diseases, and heart failure in patients with systemic diseases. Authors also address the rapidly expanding field of familial-based cardiomyopathies and the difficult task of determining prognosis. The newly diagnosed cases of heart failure include non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy, post-myocardial infarction heart failure, tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy, atrial fibrillation as a cause of heart failure, and manifestations of diastolic dysfunction causing heart failure. The section on optimizing therapy for patients with chronic heart failure encompasses treatment for an initially stabilized patient who begins to decline and presents with an acute exacerbation treating patients with devices such as defibrillators, resynchronization pacemaker systems, or both and actions that can be taken when, despite the full gamut of treatment, a patient is still symptomatic or gradually declining. Included is a discussion of hemodynamic optimization and advanced therapy for end-stage failure. Additionally, the book covers in depth procedures for determining prognosis and evaluating familial disease and includes descriptions of medications commonly used for heart failure. Chapters are consistently formatted to include an overview of underlying pathophysiology, presentation of the representative ÏteachingÓ case, and a discussion of optimal management including assessment of current evidence and guidelines. The book also features video loops of select procedures, available online. KEY FEATURES: Over thirty expert authors offer a practical, visual approach to common but complex management problems in heart failure Demonstrates real-world clinical management decisions and applications of current guidelines and evidence through case presentations Discusses assessment and treatment of newly diagnosed and chronic cases of heart failure Addresses heart failure associated with the gamut of cardiac diseases and in patients with systemic diseases Provides links to video loops of select procedures "

Cardiovascular, respiratory, and related conditions cause more than 40 percent of all deaths globally, and their substantial burden is rising, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Their burden extends well beyond health effects to include significant economic and societal consequences. Most of these conditions are related, share risk factors, and have common control measures at the clinical, population, and policy levels. Lives can be extended and improved when these diseases are prevented, detected, and managed. This volume summarizes current knowledge and presents evidence-based interventions that are effective, cost-effective, and scalable in LMICs.

Practical simple reference for understanding current management of heart failure Provides pathophysiology and pharmacology to explain the key points Focuses mostly on patient management issues

Each year over 400,000 people have a new onset of heart failure in the United States, adding to a current patient population of over 4.8 million Americans. Basics of Heart Failure takes a problem-solving approach to examining heart failure and to providing the reader with an up-to-date account of our knowledge in this area. Chapters on the diagnosis and therapy of heart failure emphasize data from recent multicenter trials.