Reasons to Diastolic Heart Failure, all the information you need.
Header image

An Introduction To Diastolic Heart Failure

Diastolic heart failure is one of the cardiac conditions widely developed in elderly people in the recent years. The condition has been developed due to the stiffness or contraction of the left ventricle of the heart. The contracted ventricle loses its elasticity or resistance to collect specified amount of blood. This condition is referred to as diastolic heart failure. This term is commonly confused with systolic heart failure. The former is developed due to stiffness of the left ventricle which reduces the ability to collect the blood, whereas the diastolic heart failure is associated with the condition of pumping of the blood out from the ventricle.

Common Causes Of Diastolic Heart Failure

Diastolic heart failure is caused due to various reasons. The condition has been discovered by the medical scholars and researchers in the recent years after thorough research on the cardiac health illnesses. Being a cardiac illness, all kinds of common causes that lead towards developing a cardiac illness are responsible for developing the diastolic heart failure. However, not all the apparent causes of cardiac condition may lead towards developing the diastolic heart failure. The common reasons are accompanied with additional factors that complicate the health condition of the heart.
It is actually a syndrome developed due to the existing illness, either known or unknown. It is caused due to weakening of the blood vessels of the ventricles of the heart, caused due to weakened functioning of the heart, etc. Some of the cardiac conditions that cause diastolic heart failure are given below:
• Damaged / weakened heart muscles, vessels and valves
• Blocked vessels, which interrupts the blood inflow and outflow
• Overexposure to toxins, alcohol and smoking
• Elevated blood pressure levels
• High cholesterol
• Pericardial effusion, which refers to the accumulation of the fluid in the heart
• Genetic heart conditions.
• Coronary heart diseases
• Diabetes, obesity, overweight, etc
While the health conditions cause the diastolic heart failure, life style is also a major culprit that damages the cardiac system and develops the diastolic dysfunction.
Diastolic Heart Failure

What Are the Factors That Aggravates the Chances of Developing Diastolic Heart Failure

Irrespective of the causes of the diastolic heart failure, either medical or lifestyle risks, the regular functionality of the heart can be affected along with impaired pumping function of the ventricles. The impaired ventricles result with causing reprehensible heart mechanism in following cases, which causes other heart conditions as well as aggravates the risk of developing diastolic heart failure.
Cardio-myopathy – The cardiac illness refers to the extremely weakened heart muscles, which is characterized by the inability to contract the ventricles or inefficiency in pumping the blood, both in and out. This condition is caused due to the high blood pressure, heart attack, diabetes, obesity, high blood cholesterol and fat, and history or presence of coronary heart disease. This condition is very much responsible for the diastolic heart failure.
Myocardial Infarction – It is nothing but a heart attack that causes extreme level of pain or a form of painful punch in the chest, over sweating, shortness of breath, etc. This condition can either lead towards collapsing the left ventricle of the heart or cardiac arrest. The severe heart attack may ruin the life or create a permanent damage to the ventricles leading towards diastolic heart failure.
Hypertension – Hypertension is most commonly known as high blood pressures. Hypertension not only causes diastolic heart failure but is also responsible for many other disorders. Elevated level of blood pressure is very closely associated with heart functionality, which requires the heart to pump the blood with additional force and energy. Longer history of high blood pressure or extreme level of pressure damages the heart valves and muscles thus result is the reduced efficiency in contraction and expansion of ventricles. The similar kind of damage happens to the heart upon high cholesterol levels, which almost suppresses the normal functionality of the heart and grounds diastolic heart failure.
Blocked valves of the heart – Valves are responsible for blood flow. When the valve is blocked, it either fails to flow out the blood from the ventricles or carry the blood to the ventricles, it eventually enhances the workload of the heart, which results with damaging the ventricles and causes the Hypertension not only causes diastolic heart failure but is also responsible for many other disorders.
Cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy as well as thyroid conditions also affect the heart and causes diastolic heart failure.
Even though the above mentioned factors contribute towards developing diastolic or systolic heart failure, in several cases the actual causes are not known until extreme diagnosis.

More useful information about Diastolic Heart Failure.

Diastolic Heart Failure – What It Means

Improper lifestyle, unhealthy habits and poor diet lead towards developing critical health conditions. One such recently developed severe health condition discovered by the physicians is diastolic heart failure. It has been discovered by the physicians upon analyzing and researching on several echo cardiograms of the patients. Diastolic heart failure refers to the failure of the diastole function of the heart, which means that the stiffness of the left ventricles of the heart loses its ability to restore back to the relaxed position after pumping out the blood. This condition is caused generally due to weaken heart and damaged ventricles, which result with inability to collect the blood.

Difference between Systolic Heart Failure and Diastolic Heart Failure

Diastolic heart failure and systolic heart failure are closely associated with each other. Systole and diastole are the two functions of the heart ventricles. Systole refers to the process of pumping out the blood to the lungs through the blood vessels and diastole is the reverse faction of systole. The major difference in systole vs. diastole heart failure is inefficiency to pump out the blood and inefficiency to collect the blood, respectively. Both the process involves ventricles functioning and damages to the muscles or ventricles result with causing the systolic or diastolic heart failure.
Systolic heart failure is actually the condition where the ventricle is accumulated with more quantity of fluid due to lack of efficiency in pumping out the blood. Diastolic heart failure is the condition where the ventricle is unable to relax itself to collect the fluid due to stiffness after pumping out the blood.
Diastolic Heart Failure

How Diastolic Heart Failure Is Diagnosed

Diastolic heart failure is a developed condition and it does not occur instantly. It is the progression and aggravated stage of diastolic dysfunction, which refers to the damaged ventricles. Similarly, it is not caused due to a single cause or a health condition. The causes of cardiac conditions lead towards diastolic heart failure. Moreover, diastolic heart failure is also developed due to some cardiac diseases. Eventually, diagnosis of this condition is quite difficult. It is widely confused with other breathing difficulties, lung diseases, etc. It is not possible to diagnose the condition with a single test or exams and combinations of different tests are used in diagnosing the condition. Following are the different methods with which the condition is diagnosed.
Chest X-Ray – X-ray helps in depicting the amount of fluid accumulated in the lungs. When the patient develops diastolic heart failure, the X-ray report depicts the enlarged heart and huge quantity of fluid in the lungs.
Electrocardiogram (ECG) – ECG is generally prescribed to diagnose all kind of cardiac diseases. It brings out the reasons for heart failure such as blockage of blood vessels, inability to breath, contracted or damaged muscles, etc. Based on the underlying cause of the heart failure the condition can be diagnosed. This is a very common method to diagnose diastolic heart failure.
Echo cardiogram– It is a kind of Ultrasound that depicts the structure of cardiac muscles and heart rhythms. Further, it provides the accurate levels of ejection and accumulation of fluid by the ventricles of the heart.
Blood test – Blood samples are collected from the patient to test the level of blood cells. Further, the levels of sodium and electrolyte are also ascertained from the samples. Blood test is generally prescribed as an additional test to substantiate the diagnosis.

A Brief Introduction about Systolic and Diastolic Heart Failure

Diastolic heart failure is a sub classification of the congestive heart failure. Congestive heart failure is classified into two type’s namely systolic and diastolic heart failure and is named after the functioning of the heart. Systole and diastole are the two functions of the heart that represents the outflow and inflow of blood at required quantity, respectively. Diastolic heart failure refers to the inability of the left ventricle of the heart to retain back its position after contracting itself for blood flow, i.e. after pumping out the blood.

How and When the Symptoms of Diastolic Heart Failure Develops?

Diastolic heart failure is not actually a direct health condition developed in an individual like heart arrest or diabetic condition. It is developed from the diastolic dysfunction. In simple terms, the advanced stage of diastolic dysfunction is referred the diastolic heart failure. Diastolic dysfunction neither has any apparent symptoms or warning signs. When the condition of diastolic dysfunction starts showing the signs, it refers that the condition has been developed into diastolic heart failure. This is the major reason, due to which many people could not get appropriate diagnosis on their diastolic dysfunction as well as not cautious or aware about their cardiac condition until the diastolic dysfunction starts depicting the signs and symptoms.
Diastolic Heart Failure

What Are the Signs and Symptoms of Diastolic Heart Failure

Following are the symptoms of diastolic heart failure.
People with diastolic heart failure don’t experience the symptoms or illnesses of the heart. Prominent indications of this hear condition include shortness of breath, extreme difficulty in breathing, lungs congestion and associated symptoms, rapid breathing, irregular heartbeats, etc. Even though these symptoms are associated with other health illnesses, patients with diastolic heart failure experience these symptoms very often in form of continuous or rapid recurrence of episodes. Unfortunately, these episodes never have any warning sign and occur all of a sudden. Subsequently, these collective symptoms are referred as the flash pulmonary edema.
Chronic cough, inability to have intense breathing, asthma, etc are also the symptoms of diastolic heart failure when the patient with or without experiencing the additional symptoms of any cardiac illness. People who already experience breathing problems tend to be careless as they consider these symptoms are aggravated breathing problems. On the contrary, people with no traces or minor breathing problems tend to consider these symptoms as initiation of breathing disorder.
Other apparent symptoms of diastolic heart failure include the inability to perform normal physical activities like walking, household work, etc due to extreme tiredness. The inefficiency of the heart i.e. muscles; blood vessels and ventricles of the heart to pump in and pump out the blood as well the oxygen affect the overall health. Subsequently, the poor supply of oxygen and blood causes elevated level of weariness making the individual intolerant to perform regular activities.
The symptoms of diastolic heart failure are the common symptoms of any form of heart condition. Subsequently, it has no warning signs to get prepared or prevent aggravating the illness.

A Brief Introduction on Diastolic Heart Failure

Recently, a new type of heart condition has been recognized and diagnosed by the cardiologists and is referred as diastolic dysfunction. The severe and advanced condition of a diastolic dysfunction leads towards diastolic heart failure. Diastolic heart failure or diastolic congestive heart failures refer to the pulmonary congestion of the diastolic dysfunction. The process of getting back into relaxed state, where the left ventricles of the heart shrinks itself for sending the blood out and comes back to normal state, is called diastole. Diastolic dysfunction means the inability of the left ventricles of the heart to expand itself to receive the blood.

How Common Is Diastolic Heart Failure

The early symptoms or warning signs of diastolic congestive heart failure include cough, sensation of blocked or improper breathing and shortness of breath. However, breathing problem is greatly associated as the symptoms of asthma and it is not considered as the warning sign of diastolic heart failure.
Apparent and evident symptoms of diastolic heart failure include the following:
Inability to exercise or perform any physical activity, in simple terms exercises intolerance. The intolerance to exercise includes walking, jogging, sweeping, mobbing, etc.
Shortness of breath, even though associated with other health conditions is the apparent symptom of diastolic heart failure. When the contracted heart ventricles fail to get relaxed, it leads lack of oxygen supply and cause severe shortness of breath.
Fluid retention and swollen legs are other symptoms of diastolic heart failure. Since the ventricles are unable to absorb blood due to contraction, subsequently, the fluid is settled at several parts of the body including feet, legs, ankles, etc. Noticeable or puffy swelling in the ankles is the severe sign of diastolic heart failure. When the fingers are pressed on the puffy or swollen areas, it reflects the impression of the fingers.
Diastolic Heart Failure

Symptoms of Diastolic Heart Failure

Diastolic congestive heart failure is caused mainly due to weakened heart function, where the improper cardiac function is associated with several factors like hypertension, blood pressure, other cardiac conditions, blocked arteries, overexposure to toxins, etc. Diastolic heart failure is widely diagnosed in older women even without any apparent traces or signs of any previous heart trouble. However, not all those individuals who develop diastolic dysfunction will continue to develop diastolic heart failure and many people are more likely to cure the condition with appropriate condition before it gets worse. Yet, the population of people with diastolic heart failure is constantly increasing due to negligence about caring their health and taking right medications. Moreover, being a new cardiac condition developed in the recent years, it is very difficult to diagnose the condition in the initial stage. However, it is not subjective that only the elderly people are associated with high risk of developing diastolic heart failure. People with inappropriate lifestyle, poor food habits, intake of drugs and alcohol, etc are also open to the risk of developing diastolic dysfunction.

What Is Congestive Diastolic Heart Failure

Heart is composed of 4 vessels, the upper vessels are called the atria and lower vessels are referred as ventricles. It is again sub-classified into right atria, left atria, right ventricles and left ventricles. The right atria and the right ventricle of the heart receive the impure blood from the body and pumps into the lungs. The left atria and left ventricle receives the blood from the lungs and pump it to the arteries of the heart to feed the purified blood to the rest of the organs of the body. Left ventricles are stronger than right ventricles as the former supplies blood to the whole body. When any of these functions of atria or ventricle are not executed well, it leads towards a heart failure. Congestive heart failure can be classified into two type’s namely systolic congestive heart failure and diastolic congestive heart failure or diastolic heart failure.

Systolic Vs Diastolic Heart Failure

The heart functionality is classified into two parts namely systole and diastole. Systole refers to the cardiac function where the heart tends to contract itself for supplying or ejecting the blood out of the heart to arteries and other part of bodies. This automated contraction of heart becomes relaxed and normal when the ventricles complete sending the blood out. After this phase, the heart receives the blood, i.e., refilled with blood for next set of cardiac cycle and this process of relaxation or transformation from contracted heart to relaxed heart is called diastole. Any kind of failure in this system is known as diastolic heart failure.

Systolic Congestive Heart Failure

Systolic heart failure is very different from the diastolic heart failure. Systolic heart failure refers to the condition of weakened heart or reduced functionality of pumping the blood. It means that the left ventricles are unable to contract it to supply the blood to the arteries. It is measured by a clinical or medical measurement called as EF – Ejection Fraction. EF refers to the computation and ascertainment of the quantity of blood flown out of the left ventricle of the heart divided by the total quantity of the blood remained in the left ventricle. A standard EF rate should be more than 50%, which means the left ventricle should release more than 50% of the blood stored. Eventually, systolic heart failure refers to the decreased amount of blood flow less than the minimum percentage of 50%. In simple terms, if the left ventricle fails to supply more than 50% of blood, it is called as systolic congestive heart failure, whereas the diastolic heart failure is associated with the expansion and relaxation of the heart.

Diastolic Congestive Heart Failure

Diastolic heart failure is quite opposed to the systolic heart failure, yet the condition is associated with the systolic process of cardiac cycle. Diastolic heart failure occurs when the heart fails to relax or expand itself to the normal size after supplying the blood by contracting itself. Sometimes, the left ventricles remain stiff after flowing out the blood and fail to diastole fully, which result with failure of receiving the full blood supply to the heart. This condition is called as abnormal ventricle filling, subsequently referred as diastolic dysfunction. The subsequent congestion of the left ventricles is called as diastolic heart failure.