1.8 million germans suffer from heart failure. 300,000 new cases of heart disease are diagnosed every year, and 30,000 patients die of heart disease each year. The audience at the vdk health forum in habfurt learned about this and how to recognize and treat the disease from doctor winfried schorb.
The doctor had two key messages: heart failure is as deadly as a tumor if it is not treated, and it is not a natural symptom of aging. Many patients make this mistake. They accept it as quite normal when they are old and their performance declines. "The heart can function well for 120 years. If there is less performance, then it is due to illness", the internist emphasized his call to go to the doctor if breathlessness sets in after a few steps, heart palpitations occur or water deposits appear in the legs.
Several causes
Causes for heart failure are mostly the vessels, if they are burdened by deposits or over decades not treated high blood pressure, or a valvular disease, a spread flu, rarely also congenital heart defects. Winfried schorb pointed out that an ECG is usually not sufficient as an examination. Many impairments of the heart became visible only with ultrasound. If there are indications of a circulatory disorder, a cardiac catheterization may be necessary, he advised.
Heart failure is accompanied by numerous concomitant diseases, because the organism is no longer supplied with sufficient nutrients. These include respiratory diseases, kidney dysfunction, sleep apnea and cardiac arrhythmias. Because of the reduced efficiency and quality of life, many patients also develop depression.
Therapy approaches
Schorb Urged listeners to pay close attention to their bodies, because chronic heart failure develops insidiously. Besides hours of acute incidents such as ventricular fibrillation or even the classic heart attack.
Many influences could lead to cardiac insufficiency, such as infections, high blood pressure, malfunctioning of the thyroid gland, but also painkillers and everything that causes circulatory disturbances, i.E. Smoking, wrong food or lack of exercise. However, he said that there are many approaches to successful therapy, especially for these patients. Above all, high blood pressure can be well controlled in almost every patient today. Today, repairing a narrowed vascular vessel or replacing an aortic valve is no longer a major operation. At the health forum, the expert recommended endurance training coordinated with the doctor, because "you can also train a weak heart.