Heart Failure Diagnosis Criteria: Steps To Diagnosis Heart Failure

To know about Heart Failure diagnosis criteria, you must first learn about the conditions. Heart failure undoubtedly is the most dangerous condition of the human heart. As the riskiest condition of the sensitive organ, heart failure treatment is slightly acute in the modern age.

But yet, specialists carefully follow the patient’s early medical history, health condition, and other diseases, and finally review all the symptoms of heart failure before diagnosis. To know clearly about all the criteria doctors and specialists maintain to diagnose heart failure conditions, continue reading to the next.

Heart Failure Diagnosis Criteria (A to Z)

Diagnosis of Heart Failure is not like some other common diseases or conditions. The specialist has to follow long medical checks. First, the doctor will observe your previous diseases and medical history.

Some medical checkups must be followed based on your health condition to diagnose heart failure. After diagnosing heart failure, the doctor will check risk factors like diabetes, high blood pressure, and coronary artery disease, then decide on the final condition.

The doctor will also use a stethoscope so that he can listen to the abnormal sounds of the heart and also can listen to the patient’s lungs for signs of congestion; he may also check the veins (jugular) in the neck and also check the abdomen and legs to find any abnormalities like a fluid buildup.

Image: Right Site Heart Failure

After a physical examination doctor may also give some tests to the patient like,

1. ECG: It helps to diagnose heart rhythm problems and damage to the heart. It also assesses how to well the heart pumps blood—features of MI, Ischemia, and LVH.
2. Chest X-ray P/A view: Chest X-ray images also help to see the patient’s heart and lungs. The doctor may also use an X-ray to diagnose conditions other than heart failure to explain the patient’s signs and symptoms. For example, a chest X-ray detects fluid-filled lung and enlarged heart, Pulmonary edema, and Cardiomegaly.
3. Echocardiogram: Echo is a heart test that uses high-frequency sound waves (ultrasound) to take a picture of a patient’s heart. This test helps the doctor see a heart’s size, shape, and other abnormalities. This test can also measure ejection fraction, an essential measurement of how well a patient’s heart is pumping.
4. Blood test: Blood sample to look for signs of disease that can affect the heart. Serum creatinine, blood urea, electrolytes, full blood count, cardiac enzymes, blood glucose level, CRP, B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) level, a substance indicative of heart failure.
5. Cardiac computerized tomography (CT) scan: In a cardiac CT scan, an X-ray tube inside the machine rotates around the patient’s body and collects the heart and chest images. This test can detect congenital disabilities of the heart and blood clots forming within the heart’s chamber.
6. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): Cardiac MRI is a painless but advanced cardiac imaging test to visualize the heart’s structure in detail. It can detect any damage to the heart muscles or blockages in the heart.
7. Stress Test: Cardiac stress test is a common term for heart failure diagnosis. It also refers to the exercise stress test. This test shows how the heart works during physical activity because, normally, the heart can pump harder and faster during exercise. According to this test, patients may be asked to walk on a treadmill while attached to an ECG machine, or patients may receive a drug intravenously stimulating the heart-like exercise.
8. Ejection Fraction (EF): This test measures the amount of blood released during the heart’s contraction. The ejection fraction compares the amount of blood in the heart to the amount of blood pumped out. Therefore, the fraction or percentage helps how to well the heart is pumping blood to the body.
9. Cardiac Catheterization: This test to check for coronary artery disease. In this test, the doctor puts a tiny, flexible, hollow tube (catheter) into a blood vessel in the groin, arm, or neck. It usually takes 30-40 minutes.

Modified Framingham Diagnosis Criteria For Heart Failure

Besides ECG, Cheast’s CT Scan, X-ray, and Framingham Diagnosis system are also effective in diagnosing heart failure.

The study of Framingham Diagnosis started a long ago, in 1948. This modified research results from a long-term study that helps identify heart disease, especially cardiovascular risk factors of cardiovascular diseases.

Framingham Diagnosis is mainly a research project developed to diagnose heart diseases, the finding of which had far-reaching impacts on medicine. The term Framingham Diagnosis that we know is named after the city Framingham.

This city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had been selected as the site of the Framingham Diagnosis study. The project was initiated under the direction of the national heart institute, newly published in 1948 (renamed the national heart, lung, and blood institute [NHLBI] in 1976).

Significant Criteria Of Framingham Diagnosis For Heart Failure

Some major criteria need to follow for the Framingham Diagnosis study. All those major criteria start with Neck Vein Distinction; and ends with Acute Pulmonary Edema. I tried to make a list of the Framingham Diagnosis research’s major criteria; here they are:

• Neck Vein Distension
• Orthopnea
• Cardiomegaly on CXR
• CVP>12 mm Hg
• Left Ventricular
• dysfunction on EKG
• Weight Loss
• Acute Pulmonary Edema

Minor Criteria Of Framingham Diagnosis For Heart Failure

After the major criteria, some minor criteria are most considerable. Here are the minor criteria of the Framingham Heart Failure diagnosis study:

• Bilateral Ankle Edema
• Night Cough
• Dyspnea on Exertion
• Hepatomegaly
• Pleural Effusion
• Tachycardia (120 beats/min)

For diagnosis of heart failure, be sure that it’s a long-term medical state of heart. Then, go to a specialist to check up, diagnose, and treat what is must need.