ABSTRACT
In medicine, cardiomyopathies are a relatively new concept, the name first being used in the late 1960s. The dominant feature of a cardiomyopathy is poor contractile function, the whole of the heart muscle being relatively equally affected. This separates it from ischaemic heart disease where the heart muscle is affected in patches, although after multiple areas of damage caused by ischaemia, the phrase ischaemic cardiomyopathy can be used.
