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Elderly Heart Failure
May 6, 2008 |
Research shows that nearly 5,000,000 people in the United States have heart
failure. Each year more than 300,000 die from the condition. Dr. Shalin Mehta is
a Cardiologist. “Congestive heart failure is a condition of which because of
your heart being weak you develop a fluid backing up and causing swelling in
your legs and other problems trouble breathing because the heart is not able to
pump blood forward.” Congestive heart failure is also much more common in
elderly folks. Lynn Chmura is a registered nurse who cares for heart failure
patients every day. “I think about 85 percent of our patients who come from the
community are over 65 and congestive heart failure is very prevalent in those
patients.” Dr. Mehta says, “The fact is that the incidents of heart failure is
actually increasing because more elderly people are living longer with heart
failure so you see more patients that actually have it.” He also says thanks to
new treatments people can continue to lead a fairly normal life with congestive
heart failure. “Their biggest complaint is that they’re not able to do as much
as they were before. It’s pretty amazing how some of these patients that with
the right medications that we’re able to get them to be really very functional,”
says Dr. Mehta. In recent years the number of Americans living with heart
failure increased steadily from about 140,000 to about 200,000. Common symptoms
for congestive heart failure include shortness of breath, weight gain, and leg
swelling. |
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