Awareness drive on heart failure tomorrow

Ameerpet: Aster Prime Hospitals, is hosting a first of its kind public health education programme, 'Win over Heart Failure,' at its campus here on Sunday. Conceptualised by Dr C Raghu, the Chief Cardiologist and Director of Aster Prime Hospital, it will focus on how to manage heart failure, on preserving quality of life and tips to prolong life span without hospitalization in heart failure and patients' success stories. Interested public, patients and their families can attend the symposium.

Heart failure is a common problem in Indians and the magnitude of this problem is rapidly increasing. The recent International Heart Failure Study published in Lancet 2017 showed people from India had an earlier development of heart failure by a decade and the mortality is very high (1 in 4 dies within 1 year of diagnosis). Mortality from heart failure is higher in the lower and middle-income groups compared to the rich. Major reasons for this rising burden of heart failure are hypertension, heart attacks, and diabetes mellitus, increasing longevity, obesity, kidney disease and valve problems.

People who are affected with heart failure need to be managed with medications and lifestyle medications. High-end therapies such a cardiac transplantation and ventricular assist devices are beyond the reach of even the rich and are in addition limited by various logistics. So, it becomes imperative that patients who had been affected by this problem need to understand the causes and how they prevent worsening of disease and sudden death, stated a press release.