Diastolic Heart Failure Treatment

The American Heart Association states that diastolic dysfunction involves a stiffening of the ventricles, the lower chambers of the heart, preventing them from filling properly. When the heart muscle can no longer adequately perform the filling and emptying cycle, the result is a build-up of fluid in the blood vessels of the lungs, causing pulmonary congestion and a diagnosis of diastolic heart failure. Treatment involves managing the cause of this condition.

Treatment

• The Cleveland Clinic provides a list of the major areas of treatment your doctor may recommend for diastolic heart failure. Treatment includes control of pulmonary congestion, restrictions on dietary sodium and fluid intake, management of atrial fibrillation, control of high blood pressure, weight management, medications, and light aerobic exercise.

  Pulmonary congestion can develop as the result of abnormal heart rhythms, such as those occurring in atrial fibrillation. If you have been diagnosed with pulmonary congestion, your doctor will prescribe diuretics to help you eliminate excess fluids through the kidneys.

  Atrial fibrillation is controlled with antiarrhythmic drugs or with cardioversion, a procedure performed in the hospital to shock the heart back to normal rhythm.

  If you are suffering from high blood pressure, your doctor will recommend restricting your sodium to a maximum of 2 grams or less per day and weight loss, if you are overweight. These changes can help to reduce your blood pressure to a safer level and may help to avoid the necessity of blood pressure medication.

  The Mayo Clinic states medications such as ACE inhibitors and beta blockers may be prescribed by your doctor to treat heart failure. ACE inhibitors are used to inhibit the activity of an enzyme in the blood that causes blood vessels to contract and become narrow resulting in an increase in blood pressure. With ACE inhibitors, blood vessels enlarge and blood pressure is lowered. This medication is also used to prevent strokes and kidney damage.

  The hormone epinephrine causes the heart to become stressed. Beta blockers are drugs that block the effect of this hormone thereby reducing stress on the heart and enabling it to beat more slowly. They also help to reduce blood pressure, treat abnormal heart rhythms, and improve survival rate after a heart attack.

  Science Daily reported on studies showing the benefits of aerobic exercises like walking and bicycling for participants with heart failure. Exercise alleviated symptoms, improved heart function, endurance, and quality of life for study participants.