Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the hearts blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, and leg swelling. The shortness of breath may occur with exertion or while lying down, and may wake people up during the night. Chest pain, including angina, is not usually caused by heart failure, but may occur if the heart failure was caused by a heart attack. The severity of the heart failure is measured by the severity of symptoms during exercise. Other conditions that may have symptoms similar to heart failure include obesity, kidney failure, liver disease, anemia, and thyroid disease.Common causes of heart failure include coronary artery disease, heart attack, high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, valvular heart disease, excessive alcohol consumption, infection, and cardiomyopathy. These cause heart failure by altering the structure or the function of the heart or in some cases both. There are different types of heart failure: right-sided heart failure, which affects the right heart, left-sided heart failure, which affects the left heart, and biventricular heart failure, which affects both sides of the heart. Left-sided heart failure may be present with a reduced ejection fraction or with a preserved ejection fraction. Heart failure is not the same as cardiac arrest, in which blood flow stops completely due to the failure of the heart to pump effectively.Diagnosis is based on symptoms, physical findings, and echocardiography.
As underdeveloped countries have become more affluent, the incidences of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity have increased, which have in turn raised the incidence of heart failure. Sex
Men have a higher incidence of heart failure, but the overall prevalence rate is similar in both sexes since women survive longer after the onset of heart failure. Women tend to be older when diagnosed with heart failure (after menopause), they are more likely than men to have diastolic dysfunction, and seem to experience a lower overall quality of life than men after diagnosis. Ethnicity
Some sources state that people of Asian descent are at a higher risk of heart failure than other ethnic groups. Other sources however have found that rates of heart failure are similar to rates found in other ethnic groups. History
For centuries, the disease entity which would include many cases of what today would be called heart failure was dropsy; the term denotes generalized edema, a major manifestation of a failing heart, though also caused by other diseases.