Heart Attack Vs Heart Failure Vs Cardiac Arrest: Know the difference between these three heart conditions – TheHealthSite

People tend to confuse different heart conditions. Dr Santosh Kumar Dora explains the difference between heart attack and heart failure and cardiac arrest.

People tend to confuse different heart conditions. Dr Santosh Kumar Dora explains the difference between heart attack and heart failure and cardiac arrest.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death across the globe. According to the World Health Organisation, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) account for an estimated 17.9 million deaths every year. CVDs are a group of disorders that affect the heart. Some of the most common heart diseases include heart attack, heart failure, and cardiac arrest. But people often use the terms interchangeably, and you should know the difference between the two.

A heart attack is a heart disease, which happens when one of the arteries supplying blood to the heart muscles gets blocked suddenly by a blood clot over an ulcerated atheromatous plaque.

A heart attack usually presents as severe pain in the middle of the chest, sometimes radiating to the arms or towards the jaw. The pain is usually like choking or compressing in nature. Other uncommon signs include shortness of breath, coughing and wheezing, nausea and vomiting, significant cold sweat etc.

Heart attack requires emergency assessment and treatment. It is best to get treated within the first hour after symptoms appear. The doctor usually either performs primary angioplasty to open the blocked artery or gives medicine to dissolve the clot obstructing the artery.

The heart is responsible for pumping blood throughout the body. When it becomes unable to pump blood as required by the body, it leads to heart failure. It could be because of pumping failure due to weak or stiffened heart muscles.

The most common symptom of heart failure is shortness of breath. You may experience this symptom while doing some activity. But in severe cases, shortness of breath may even affect you when you are at rest. In severe cases, a patient will not be able to sleep and often feel the urge to sit up with panting for breath.

It can also cause weight gain due to water retention in the body. This leads to oedema of legs and face. Heart failure also leads to fatigability and extreme tiredness with minimal activity.

Heart failure treatment ranges from drug therapy, lifestyle modifications and surgical treatment. Doctors prescribe drugs, which include medicines to increase urine output, medicines to slow down the heart rate, medicines to decrease cardiac afterload to increase cardiac efficiency.

In some of the patients with heart failure, a specialized pacemaker known as cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is recommended to improve pumping efficiency. In some patients with low pumping, an implantable cardiac defibrillator is suggested to prevent cardiac arrest.

Lifestyle modification plays a vital role in heart failure patients. It consists of:

smoking cessation

alcohol cessation

avoidance of junk food

eating a low salt diet

restricted fluid intake, etc.

When heart failure patients stop responding anymore to standard anti-heart failure drugs, cardiac transplantation or left ventricular assist device is recommended.

It is a condition when the heart stops pumping blood. This happens if the heart does not contract at all due to the absence of any electrical activity of the heart beats so fast that the pumping becomes grossly ineffective. The latter situation is more common among the two conditions. It leads to a sudden absence of blood circulation to all organs of the body.

Cardiac arrest leads to sudden cardiac death. Within seconds of cardiac arrest, the person collapses, falls to the ground and becomes unconscious. The heart stops beating and breathing stop. The person may diet unless cardiopulmonary resuscitation is started immediately and continued till shock therapy (defibrillation) is given within the first few minutes.

Cardiac arrest treatment consists of immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) followed by defibrillation therapy.

With inputs by Dr Santosh Kumar Dora, Senior Cardiologist, Asian Heart Institute, Mumbai

Published : December 18, 2020 9:19 pm

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Heart Attack Vs Heart Failure Vs Cardiac Arrest: Know the difference between these three heart conditions - TheHealthSite