ABSTRACT
Congestive heart failure Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a relatively common clinical disorder in which the heart fails to provide an adequate blood flow to the peripheral tissues of the body. It is a serious condition experienced by some one-half million Americans; the five-year survival rate of such patients is less than 50 percent. CHF symptoms are associated with one or more of five key pathophysiologic features. These include blood pressure overload, volume overload, loss of heart muscle, decreased contractility, and disturbances in filling the heart. When such conditions result in reduced cardiac output, several compensatory mechanisms are activated that may sustain performance for a limited period, but without appropriate drug intervention, cardiac efficiency soon declines. The resulting symptoms include both ankle and pulmonary edema as well as ascites.1
