Heart failure is a mostly common syndrome which harshly influences your quality of life and has high mortality rates. It is the most common diagnosis in hospitalized individuals over 65 years old and the most common factor for hospitalization in the internal departments. Today, we know that through providing professional, tight and constant care, half of the repetitive hospitalizations may be prevented.
Heart failure is caused as a result of a few reasons:
- Damage to the heart muscle after cardiac infraction
- Primary disease of the heart muscle (cardiomyopathy)
- Cardiac valve disease
- Rarely, an inflammatory disease harming the heart muscle.
The Symptoms for heart failure are:
- Weakness and fatigue
- Shortness of breath under stress or during rest
- Leg edemas
The primary objective of caring for these diseases is to prevent and withhold the development of heart failures, to decrease the harm to the heart muscle and improve the cardiac function. With modern treatment, there is a valid option to improve the quality of life and reduce the illness and morbidity rates in these patients.
Main Services
Heart Failure Clinic
Patients suffering from heart failures require a medical service to coordinate all the information and be able to provide with optimal care for their basic illness and other, accompanying conditions. During the first visit in the clinic, there will be a primary evaluation, including a medical exam, a guidance from a cardiology nurse, who is an expert on managing care for patients suffering from heart failures, and who expertises in cardiac and respiratory intensive care, ECG, heart echo, and if necessary, also holter and pacemaker tests and nutritional guidance.
After gathering all the information, the patients will receive a therapeutic plan including, on top of the medical recommendations, also other recommendations, such as need for catheterization, defibrillator implanting, heart surgery (bypass, valves, heart transplant).
Also, the clinic holds evaluations and referrals for heart implanting center for fitting patients.
The ambulatory service acts as a clinic for stable patients and as day hospitalization for patients suffering from advanced heart failure.
Day hospitalization for patients with advanced heart failure
We consider great importance to the daily care. The main objective is to balance the heart failure, decrease and prevent repeating hospitalizations, providing supportive care for the illness and improve the quality of life for these patients. Within the day hospitalization, these patients will be able to receive various treatments not administered in the clinic, such as:
- Variable transfusions with blood pressure monitoring, urine and electrolytes tests
- Inotropic drug transfusion, while monitoring arrhythmia and blood pressure.
- Nitrite transfusion and titration of pulmonary stress relievers with hemodynamic monitoring.
- Blood products transfusions
- Iron transfusions
- Pleural and pericardial tabs
- CPAP in patients with pulmonary congestion
- Beginning of anti-arrhythmic treatment for patients with heart failures requiring heart rate monitoring.
- Optimization of a cardiac resynchronizer
- Inclusive cardiac clarification for patients with mobility issues
- Any required clarification, including chest x-ray, echo, blood tests and consults of any other field are conducted on the same day.
- Nutritional and social worker consultant, if necessary
Clinical Studies:
The activity of the heart failure center includes holding many clinical studies. The patients can participate in those studies and have a chance to participate in innovative treatments.
