Heart Failure

Question 1

What are the common causes of systolic heart failure?

Answer 1

IHD, MI, cardiomyopathy.

Question 2

What is diastolic heart failure?

Answer 2

Inability of the ventricles to relax and fill normally leading to an increase in filling pressures.

Question 3

What are the causes of diastolic heart failure?

Answer 3

Constrictive pericarditis, cardiac tamponade, restrictive cardiomyopathy, hypertension.

NB: systolic and diastolic heart failure normally coexist.

Question 4

What is left-sided heart failure?

Answer 4

Left ventricular failure.

Question 5

What is right-sided failure?

Answer 5

Right ventricular failure.

Question 6

What is the term given to the condition where a patient has both left-and right-sided heart failure?

Answer 6

Congestive cardiac failure (CCF).

Question 7

What are the symptoms of left-sided heart failure?

Answer 7

Dyspnoea, poor exercise tolerance, fatigue, orthopnoea, paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnoea (PND), nocturnal cough (sometimes seen with pink, frothy sputum), wheeze (cardiac ‘asthma’)’ nocturia, cold peripheries, weight loss and muscles wasting.

Question 8

What are the symptoms of right-sided heart failure?

Answer 8

Peripheral oedema (can be up to thighs, sacrum and abdominal wall), ascites, nausea, anorexia, facial engorgement, pulsation in the neck and face (tricuspid regurgitation), epistaxis.

Question 9

What is acute heart failure?

Answer 9

New onset, acute

Question 10

What is systolic heart failure?

Answer 10

Inability of the ventricles to contract normally leading to a decrease in cardiac output.