How do doctors diagnose heart failure?
In many cases, physicians diagnose heart failure during a physical examination. Readily identifiable signs are shortness of breath, fatigue, and swollen ankles and feet.
The physician also will check for the presence of risk factors, such as hypertension, obesity and a history of heart problems.
Using a stethoscope, the physician can listen to a patient breathe and identify the sounds of lung congestion. The stethoscope also picks up the abnormal heart sounds indicative of heart failure.
If neither the symptoms nor the patient's history point to a clear-cut diagnosis, the physician may recommend any of a variety of laboratory tests, including an electrocardiogram, which uses recording devices placed on the chest to evaluate the electrical activity of a patient's heartbeat.
Echocardiography is another means of evaluating heart function from outside the body. Sound waves bounced off the heart are recorded and translated into images. The pictures can reveal abnormal heart size, shape, and movement. Echocardiography also can be used to calculate a patient's ejection fraction, a measure of the amount of blood pumped out when the heart contracts.
Another possible test is the chest X ray, which also determines the heart's size and shape, as well as the presence of congestion in the lungs.
Tests help rule out other possible causes of symptoms. The symptoms of heart failure can result when the heart is made to work too hard, instead of from damaged muscle. Conditions that overload the heart occur rarely and include severe anemia and thyrotoxicosis (a disease resulting from an overactive thyroid gland).
Read what Dharam Pal Jain, M.D., a cardiologist with Columbia St. Mary's, advises heart failure patients.
