Essay On Congestive Heart Failure

Congestive heart failure is the process in which the heart becomes in-able to maintain circulation for the requirements of the body at an effective rate, As the heart is one of the body’s vital organs, it plays an important role and has some degree of compensating mechanisms to balance the body’s needs with existing disease of the heart. Eventually when the heart is no longer able to compensate heart failure occurs; congestion will then follow, resulting in insufficient supply of blood to the body.

Clinical signs associated:
In some cases Heart failure may be recognised early on at home by owners, the first clinical signs associated with heart failure that may cause an owner to bring their pet in for a check-up may involve, exercise intolerance, fatigue, lethargy, weight loss, difficulty sleeping or collapse. (Left and Right sided heart failure clinical signs will
Overweight patients must be given a weight control diet; Heart failure patients may often be anorexic, If the patient in underweight they must be fed a palatable formulated diet that have added nutrients, potassium and magnesium, (and decreased sodium). Exercise should be restricted to small amounts only and stress at home should be minimised. The pet should return to the clinic for regular rechecks and the pets’ home respiratory rate should be recorded and passed onto the Veterinarian to record on the patients file at each visit. The owner can closely monitor their pet respiratory rate at home, which should always stay under 30 breathes per