Heart patients warned to avoid colds and flu

Heart conditions make people more vulnerable to serious complications from flu and pneumonia, so heart failure experts emphasize that patients really need to be vaccinated against both. They also caution them to stay out of crowds during influenza and cold season, because either illness could be very dangerous.

More than a half million new cases of heart failure are diagnosed each year. And hospitalizations for the condition outpace inpatient treatment of all forms of cancer combined.

Still, with a little knowledge and attention to details, people can live long and well with heart failure, according to experts who will be featured on the Deseret Morning News/Intermountain Healthcare Hotline from 10 a.m. to noon today. Dr. Dale G. Renlund, medical director of LDS Hospital's Heart Failure Program; nurse practitioner Sally Brush; and registered nurse Charmain Nemelka will answer phoned-in questions about heart failure.

Heart failure, in its most simple terms, is the inability of a weakened heart muscle to pump adequately. Besides limiting a person's activity level and quality of life, it can also be a killer.

One of the most important messages a patient diagnosed with heart failure can hear is that it's possible to live with heart failure and manage its details, much as you'd manage diabetes, says Brush.

"Our plan is to teach as much as we can about heart failure, medications, activities, daily weight, diet, symptoms and how to manage them. And in terms of living with it, the most important thing to know is there is hope and relief from symptoms, which can be quite severe."

It is even possible, in some cases, to get the heart to "restructure somewhat so you have a better pumping action, although it takes a while," Brush says.

"I think self-management is the key to managing heart failure," adds Nemelka.

LDS Hospital teaches an approach they call MAWDS, which stands for medications, activity, weight, diet and symptoms. Each patient is given a diary to track symptoms daily, with particular attention paid to rapid changes in weight. Someone who gains two pounds overnight or five pounds in a few days is probably retaining fluid. "We worry about that," Brush says.

Patients bring those diaries with them to appointments, where they help clinical staff see how a patient is doing and adjust treatments.

Nurse coordinators work with folks who have heart failure to manage them as outpatients. One of the biggest reasons people are hospitalized is heart failure, but the program's emphasis is on managing without admitting when possible.