Skip to main content

Complications of Heart Failure – Problems That may Occur After Heart Failure

complications of heart failure Complications of heart failure are common and preventive measures should be taken to decrease their severity. Heart failure can be acute or chronic. Heart failure is termed as acute when symptoms of heart failure develop over a period of few days and heart failure is termed as chronic when symptoms of heart failure develop over the period of months.
Heart failure once occurs continue to progress unless intervened by pharmacological or non-pharmacological interventions. There are various complications of heart failure. Some complications of heart failure occur due to heart failure itself while other complications occur due to the pharmacological or non-pharmacological treatment of heart failure.
Following are the few common complications of heart failure.

Complications of Heart Failure:


1. Uremia:
Uremia is a complication of heart failure. It may occur as a result of diuretic therapy. The low cardiac output which is present in heart failure contributes to the progression of uremia. Treatment with vasodilators and dopamine may improve renal perfusion with blood and decrease the possibility of uremia.

2. Hypokalemia:
Hypokalemia is another complication of heart failure. Diuretic therapy causes hypokalemia. Hyperaldosteronism which usually occurs in heart failure increases the excretion of potassium.

3. Hyponatremia.
Again hyponatremia which is another complication of heart failure occurs due to diuretic therapy. Diuretics increase the excretion of both sodium and potassium (except Potassium-sparing diuretics) along with water. In decompensated heart failure inappropriate water retention takes place which may cause hyponatremia.

4. Impaired Liver Function:
In right heart failure, due to high back pressure, hepatic congestion occurs. Which impair liver function, hepatic tenderness and mild jaundice may occur and effect of those drugs which are metabolized by the liver may potentiate. (eg. anticoagulants)

5. Thromboembolism:
Due to blood stasis in deep veins of legs and dilated heart chambers, chances of thrombus and embolus formation increase several folds.

6. Arrhythmias:
It is another serious complication of heart failure. An underlying heart disease, Electrolyte changes, Increase circulating catecholamines and drugs, for example, digoxin may contribute to cardiac arrhythmias.
So these are the most common complications of heart failure.
You may like us on Facebook ( see sidebar) or subscribe via email to remain in touch with us in future.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

IELTS or OET - Reviews - Personal Experience - Which to Choose - IETLS vs OET

OET and IELTS both are used to assess the knowledge of English Language. The basic difference between the above two is this, IETLS is a more generalized English language assessment test, on the other hand, OET is profession specific. For example, if you are a doctor, the content of the test will be related to your occupation. Because of this, the OET is being chosen by many healthcare professional instead of IELTS. Both tests have the same sub-categories, that is listening, speaking, writing and reading. Lets us discuss the differences one by one. TEST OET IELTS OET Compared to IELTS is ………. (Author’s opinion) Speaking You will need to do two role plays. You will be given a situation and asked to counsel the patient about a disease and treatment or break the bad news. It has 3 parts, first is an introduction and general question, In the second part you will be provided with a topic to speak for 2 minutes. In the 3rd part, you will b...

MTI program Royal College of Physicians UK for International Doctors

  MTI (Mutual Training Initiative) is a program which is sponsored by the Royal College of Physicians UK (all three colleges), you can work in the UK for a period of up to two years.  It has the following requirements; 1. You should have MRCP part 1 passed (minimum requirement) 2. You must have got the required score in the IELTS or OET           a. For IELTS the required score is minimum 7.0 in all subcategories (reading, listening, writing and speaking) and an overall score of 7.5.           b. For OET the required score is grade B in all subcategories.  3. You must appear in an interview conducted by the Royal College of Physicians in your country and selected for the post OR you find a Job in the UK directly and inform Royal College of Physicians (London) that you have got the job by yourself and now you need RCP sponsorship for GMC registration.  You do not need to pass PLAB or MRCP (all parts) to get t...