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Query: UMLS:C0018801 (heart failure)
 72,216 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

We briefly review the evidence for a hypothesis, which links the ventilatory response to heavy intensity, sustained exercise-to-exercise performance limitation in health. A key step in this linkage is a respiratory muscle fatigue-induced metaboreflex, which increases sympathetic vasoconstrictor outflow, causing reduced blood flow to locomotor muscles and locomotor muscle fatigue. In turn, the limb fatigue comprises an important dual contribution to both peripheral and central fatigue mechanisms, which contribute to limiting exercise performance. Clinical implications for respiratory limitations to exercise in patients with chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD) and chronic heart failure (CHF) are discussed and key unresolved problems are outlined.
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PMID:Consequences of exercise-induced respiratory muscle work. 1678 Dec

Over the last decades, development of home care services is an important component of ongoing health care systems reforms. However, their full integration into hospital or primary care services is still progressing slowly. It appears that telehomecare (THC) could help create networks of services between hospital and primary care providers. Even though their potential to increase access to services and improve quality of care and health outcomes is recognized, their widespread adoption has not yet been achieved. Various barriers need to be overcome. In this paper, we present our comparative exploratory process analysis of the use of THC to follow the treatment of elderly people suffering from severe chronic conditions (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD], hypertension, cardiac insufficiency). The technology was first introduced as a pilot project in three sites (one site in Quebec and two sites in Manitoba, Canada). Our study is based on qualitative methods. It includes a longitudinal analysis of implementation processes and monitoring of results. Our analysis allows us to identify some of the major impacts on patients and providers, and explain how they may be achieved. Also, because of the major changes in work processes, THC introduces new models of home care delivery. Two models are identified: a specialized model and a planned polyvalent model. Such profound changes raise two major challenges for managers and providers. First, the organisation of work, traditionally based upon preestablished intervention plans, must adapt to respond to ad hoc patients' needs and alerts. Second, constant linkages between the traditional and new models of services delivery become mandatory.
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PMID:Impacts of telehomecare on patients, providers, and organizations. 1679 5

COPD affects up to one third of patients with chronic heart failure. The coexistence of COPD and chronic heart failure presents clinicians with diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. Measurement of B-type natriuretic peptide plasma levels facilitates the diagnosis of acute dyspnea in patients known to have both COPD and chronic heart failure. Patients with COPD or chronic heart failure have skeletal muscle abnormalities that limit functional capacity independently from primary organ failure. Exercise training reverses skeletal muscle abnormalities in patients with COPD or chronic heart failure and may be particularly indicated in patients with coexistent COPD and chronic heart failure.
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PMID:Diagnostic usefulness of B-type natriuretic peptide and functional consequences of muscle alterations in COPD and chronic heart failure. 1703 59

Whereas the right ventricle tolerates volume loads without any substantial increase of the pressure in the pulmonary circulation by recruiting capacitance vessels and capillaries, it possesses only small contractile reserves and reacts unadapted with right ventricular dysfunction. Its size and pressure load are relevant factors for prognosis of all forms of pulmonary hypertension, in particular if linked to left-sided heart failure. Differentiation of pulmonary hypertension according to the Venice classification is highly important. Right-sided ventricular heart failure worsens left ventricular hemodynamics due to reduced ejection fraction and in addition due to direct diastolic ventricular interaction in which left ventricular diastolic dysfunction increases even though the left ventricular systolic function is still intact. Right ventricular ejection fraction <40% is an important predictor of prognosis after myocardial infarction or chronic stages of left ventricular heart failure. The most important noninvasive diagnostic method is transthoracic echocardiography with determination of the Tei index and Doppler echocardiographic estimation of pulmonary artery pressure. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is the most frequent cause of cor pulmonale. While long-term oxygen therapy in patients with COPD and cor pulmonale and for example the administration of endothelin receptor antagonists in patients with idiopathic pulmonary hypertension is beneficial, the therapeutic use of drugs effective for left-sided heart failure is very limited in patients with right ventricular dysfunction.
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PMID:[Right heart failure and cor pulmonale]. 1762 62

In 2007, several international studies brought useful information for the daily work of internists in hospital settings. This summary is of course subjective but reflects the interests and questions of the chief residents of the Department of internal medicine who wrote this article like an original trip in medical literature. This trip will allow you to review some aspects of important fields such as heart failure, diabetes, endocarditis, COPD, and quality of care. Besides the growing diversity of the fields covered by internal medicine, these various topics underline also the uncertainty internists have to face in a practice directed towards evidence.
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PMID:[Highlights 2007 in hospital-based internal medicine: the point of view from the chief residents]. 1838 35

When severe COPD and obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) coexist, management is challenging and complex. Drug contraindications limit pharmacologic options. Patients may not be candidates for surgical septal myectomy due to severe pulmonary disease. We describe a case of an elderly woman with severe reactive COPD who presented with an infectious exacerbation and dyspnea that progressed to near intubation due to heart failure from coexistent obstructive HCM. Transthoracic echocardiography revealed massive asymmetric septal hypertrophy and a diffusely hyperkinetic left ventricle with a left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT) gradient of 92 mm Hg. Two and a half hours after oral administration of disopyramide, LVOT gradient had decreased to 25 mm Hg with a corresponding immediate improvement in symptoms.
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PMID:Oral disopyramide for the acute treatment of severe outflow obstruction in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in the ICU setting. 1846 May 23

The aim of the present study was to compare the characteristics of patients referred to our heart failure outpatient clinic with those of patients enrolled in clinical trials on heart failure pharmacological treatment. Thus, we estimated the proportion of patients admitted to our heart failure outpatient clinic who would have been included in randomized controlled trials evaluating the effects of medical treatments on heart failure mortality, published over a 10 years period (1993-2003). Sixteen studies (n = 45276) and 299 consecutive outpatients, were included. On average, only 34% of the outpatients would have been included in at least one of the 16 trials (8-71%). The main reasons for exclusion were: NYHA class (70% were in NYHA class II), ejection fraction (29% had EF > 35%), co-morbidity (51% had co-morbidity, mainly renal failure, COPD, and disthyroidism), age (22% were older than 80 years), and occurrence of a recent acute event (50% experienced an ischemic coronary syndrome, revascularization, pulmonary edema, or stroke in the prior 6 months). These results underline the crucial role of patient selection in clinical trials, raising uncertainties about the complete applicability of trial results to clinical practice.
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PMID:Eligibility criteria in heart failure randomized controlled trials: a gap between evidence and clinical practice. 1955 72

Metoprolol is a widely used cardioselective beta-blocker. However, like all other beta-blockers it is also a racemic mixture of R- and S- isomers. The beta 1 blocking activity (cardioselectivity) of metoprolol resides in S-isomer while R-isomer exhibits beta 2 blocking activity. As both these isomers have different pharmacological properties, racemic metoprolol can be considered a combination of two different drugs in a fixed 1:1 ratio. The needless administration of the non beta-blocking R-enantiomer that makes up 50% of racemate actually puts the patient at an increased risk of side-effects, drug interactions and loss of cardioselectivity with up-titration of dosing. Clinical experience with chirally pure S-metoprolol at half the dose of racemate has shown it to be as effective as racemate in the treatment of patients with hypertension and angina. S-metoprolol has been shown to be effective and well-tolerated in patients with coexisting diabetes, COPD, and hyperlipidaemia. This confirms higher cardioselectivity of S-metoprolol in clinical settings. Less interaction potential of S-metoprolol compared to R-isomer further makes it a sensible choice in patients taking CYP2D6 inhibitors or in patients with heart failure or hepatic insufficiency. This article reviews differing properties of two isomers of metoprolol with focus on clinical experience with S-metoprolol.
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PMID:S-metoprolol: the 2008 clinical review. 1882 49

COPD is a disease that is not confined to the airways and the lungs, but also produces systemic consequences. Muscle weakness is one of these. It is produced by a multitude of factors including deconditioning, systemic inflammation, oxidative stress, nutritional imbalance, reduced anabolic status, systemic corticosteroids, hypoxemia, hypercapnia, electrolyte disturbances, cardiac failure. The most important factors appear to be inactivity and systemic inflammation. Inactivity was shown to be present in patients with COPD from early in the course of the disease on. Systemic inflammation was shown to be predominantly present during COPD exacerbations. IL-6 has the propensity to reduce muscle function in experimental animals. At present there is no evidence of local production of cytokines in the muscle in patients with COPD. Muscle weakness is also important in the clinical course of the disease as it is associated with exercise intolerance, reduced quality of life, enhanced utilization of health care resources and reduced survival. Rehabilitation is the best treatment for muscle weakness and deconditioning in patients with COPD. Indeed, it is the intervention with the largest effect on health status and exercise capacity in these patients. Several factors that may enhance the effects of rehabilitation have been studied. These include: growth hormone/ IGF-I, anabolic steroids, clenbuterol, creatine, anti-cytokine treatment, erythropoietin, oxygen, non-invasive mechanical ventilation and electrical stimulation. Recently, the potential of protease-inhibitors in reversing deconditioning-induced muscle dysfunction was demonstrated. Adjuncts are potentially particularly useful in patients who do not respond to a rehabilitation programme. Analysis of large d-bases demonstrated that about one third of the patients does not respond to rehabilitation. A follow-up study suggests that decline in exercise capacity after a rehabilitation programme is particularly present in these patients and not in the patients with a clear initial response. A better understanding of the factors controlling the response to rehabilitation, may lead to significant advances in this field.
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PMID:Pulmonary rehabilitation 2007: from bench to practice and back. 1898 Jul 25

Non-invasive mechanical ventilation (NIV) has been employed alternatively to invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) in acute treatment as well as in long-term domiciliary use. In hypercapnic acute respiratory failure (ARF), NIV significantly reduces intubation and mortality rates and should thus be preferred to IMV whenever possible and as quick as possible. On the other hand, NIV is not generally recommended in hypoxemic ARF. Strong evidence supports the use of domiciliary NIV in chronic respiratory failure caused by neuromuscular diseases or by thoracic restrictions. In contrast, its influence on long time survival in COPD patients is not clearly proven. Prescription of home NIV in COPD should therefore be confined to severe degrees of chronic respiratory failure. Adaptive servo ventilation is another ventilatory mode that is increasingly used in patients with chronic heart failure and Cheyne-Stokes respiration.
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PMID:[Non-invasive ventilation in the treatment of acute respiratory and chronic ventilatory failure]. 1925 12


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