Heart failure in old age

The main symptom

Heart problems are becoming more common in old age. They are quite understandable: the body wears out, various diseases develop and worsen, including atherosclerosis and other vascular problems. All this inevitably leads to heart weakness. Therefore, everyone needs to know how to treat heart failure in the elderly.

With age, a person manifests certain functional changes in the cardiovascular system of a negative nature. A number of factors lead to them:

1. An increase in the frequency of arterial hypertension (more simply, an increase in blood pressure).
2. The prevalence of coronary heart disease, as well as the combination of these two diseases.
3. Sclerosis and / or myocardial atrophy in the elderly population.
4. Progressive atherosclerosis of both large and small arteries, which causes a decrease in the elasticity of blood vessels, which, in turn, provokes an increase in the load on the heart.
5. Decrease and change in the reaction of the heart to various loads (both physical and emotional).
6. Calcification of heart valves, leading to hemodynamic shift / shifts.
7. A registered increase in the level of vascular rigidity, often caused by their thickening and focal fibrosis.

There is still a fairly significant number of age-related changes occurring in the body, when a person collides with which it is the heart that turns out to be the most unprotected organ of it.

Treatment of heart failure in the elderly should be comprehensive, in several of the most important directions. Among them, the following are distinguished:

• Strengthening and support of the contractile ability of cardiac tissues.
• Reducing the retention volume of water and sodium salts.
• Partial or complete leveling of loads and afterloads on the heart of people in old age, which is achieved by taking several groups of certain cardiac drugs (drug treatment).

It is generally accepted that a cough is a low-risk symptom of some diseases, primarily of a cold nature. Sometimes it can indicate much more serious problems. Including - about the presence of heart failure.

In medicine, the term "heart cough" is quite common. This is a type of pathology that is caused by frequent bronchospasms, in turn, provoked by disruptions in the venous blood flow.

There are several types of heart cough:

• Dry, paroxysmal / intermittent. Often it indicates a problem such as stenosis of the mitral valve in a patient.
• A debilitating cough in the evenings, which is characterized by the inability of the patient to lie down horizontally; in a horizontal position, the person suffers from suffocation. Often indicative of left ventricular failure.
• A dry and irritating cough is congestion of blood in the lungs.
• A sharp and short cough is accompanied by pain in the sternum or in the heart, and often indicates the presence of rheumatism and pericarditis at the same time.

"Bloody sputum", which is discharged when coughing, speaks of severe heart ailments, such as atrial fibrillation in an elderly person, complicated with severe pulmonary congestion.

The absolute absence of phlegm (even in minimal amounts) is one of the symptoms that a cough can be caused by heart failure.

As for the treatment of cough in case of heart failure in old age, the doctors "unanimously" claim that it can be completely eliminated by curing the underlying disease. And to alleviate the patient's condition, certain medications are offered that do not affect the heart and blood vessels: vasodilators - to improve blood flow, anesthetic drugs with expectorant action, diuretics and some other categories of drugs.

Techniques for working with the elderly

Treatment of a diagnosed ailment of the cardiac plan is often carried out in three main directions, which are synchronized.

Medical treatment. This type of therapy is the main one for such disorders in elderly and senile people. It is used to ensure that a person is maximally protected from stress of any nature (emotional, mental or physical) on the heart. The most common medications for conservative treatment are divided into three groups:

1. Preparations of the group of vasodilators. These include: nitrates that have an effect on the tone of the veins; medicines acting on the tone of arterioles ("Corinfar", "Hydralazine", "Phentolamine"); affecting the tone of veins and arterioles ("Captopril"). They are also ACE inhibitors that weaken the production of the vasoconstrictor hormone angiotensin (II).
2. Preparations of the glycoside group ("Digoxin").
3. Diuretics (diuretics), which include thiazide, loop and potassium-sparing drugs.

It is also imperative to follow the basic rules of medication treatment.

You need to start therapy with small doses of the drug - often half of the usual dose. The increase should be gradual and even. Even the slightest manifestations of side effects of the drugs used should be strictly monitored.

Surgical treatment. It also happens that heart failure in old age requires surgical treatment. The most commonly used of them include the following methods:

1. Revascularization of the heart muscle (myocardium), that is, restoration of its vascular blood supply.
2. Electrocardiostimulation by implanting special defibrillators into the patient's body.
3. Correction of a heart defect in a patient by closed (not opening the heart cavity), open (opening the heart cavity when using a heart-lung machine) and X-ray surgical options.
4. Pericardiectomy surgery (complete or partial removal of the pericardium, performed with pericarditis).
5. Tumor resection (removal with part of the organ in which it is located).
6. Transplantation (transplantation) of a donor heart, however, this is the only type of surgical intervention that is practically not used due to the elderly age of patients.

All other types of surgical treatment are not contraindicated for the elderly and old people.

In addition, it is customary to classify the types of surgical intervention according to the degree of urgency of their implementation, dividing into emergency (that is, those that do not tolerate the slightest delay), urgent (there is no urgency, as in emergency cases, but the surgical intervention should be performed in within a few days after the diagnosis, since it may become late later), as well as planned (in other words, elective), which can be postponed for a short time and carried out as planned, at the appointed time.

Lifestyle correction. This measure involves the implementation of certain recommendations and prescriptions of a specialist. Often these include:

1. Correction of nutrition (adherence to the patient's diet, decrease in the amount of animal fats consumed by him, decrease in salt and liquid intake, as well as an increase in the mass fraction of vegetables and fruits in food).
2. Correction of attitudes towards alcohol and nicotine (complete elimination or reduction in the amount of their consumption).
3. Correction of physical activity (maintaining the minimum load, feasible for the elderly people).

Dangers

Diagnosed heart failure in the elderly has many dangers. First of all, this is that the heart itself, like all other organs of the patient, suffers from blood flow disturbances, which means that it is often subjected to oxygen starvation.

Another danger that lies in wait for patients with heart failure is the limitation of physical activity. Depending on the stage of the disease, it can be expressed slightly, or vice versa, too much, when any physical activity causes shortness of breath, heart pain and other negative sensations.

Therefore, observing a dry cough in a close elderly person for a long time, shortness of breath, a sharp deterioration in the general condition with even the smallest physical activity and other symptoms, one should not postpone a visit to the doctor. Perhaps by doing this you will save the life of a loved one. You should also help the patient follow all medical recommendations. Only through the joint efforts of specialists and the patient's family can the disease be overcome.