CHD is the most common cause of HF, but below are some other common causes and a brief description of how this occurs.
| Damage to the heart muscle: |
Excessive workload of the heart |
- Myocardial infarction (MI): muscle damaged due to blocked coronary artery supplying blood to muscle
- Coronary Heart Disease (CHD): Interruption of blood flow within the coronary arteries can cause cardiac muscle weakness
- Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM): global (all over) enlargement of the ventricles cause thinning of the cardiac muscle and poor pumping ability
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- Hypertension: high blood pressure or hypertension means that the heart has to work harder to pump the blood around the body. If untreated this can lead to thickening of the cardiac muscle and thereafter poor pumping ability and thinning over time.
- Aortic stenosis (AS): when the aortic valve becomes stiff and narrowed it cannot function properly. This leads to increased pressure within the heart leading to poor pumping ability.
- Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HOCM): where the cardiac muscle becomes enlarged and thickened. This creates a stiff structure which in turn creates problems with the blood flowing through the heart.
- Severe anaemia: when the cardiac muscle is deprived of oxygen rich blood carried on haemoglobin, the cardiac muscle cannot pump effectively and can fail.
- Arrhythmias: if the volume of blood pumped out of the heart is not consistent (in arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation) then the cardiac muscle is unable to pump effectively
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Pulse point
You may notice that some of these are conditions can be treated successfully, so it is important to identify these reversible conditions and treat accordingly.
There are many more less common causes – see SIGN 147.PDF
Page last reviewed: 28 Jul 2020
