Heart Attack / Heart Failure

[jasmin26]

can someone please explain to me the difference ? What is the most dangerous ? Sorry if its a dumb question.

[woofgang]

http://www.patient.co.uk/search.asp?searchterm=heart+failure&searchcoll=All&x=0&;y=0

http://www.patient.co.uk/search.asp?searchterm=heart+attack&;searchcoll=All&x=0&y=0

[237SJ]

A heart attack is something that blocks an artery. Either a blood clot or a plaque that has broken away from an artery in the heart or some other part of the body and thus blocks the arteries in the heart. Heart failure is what it says.

[Daffy6543]

Heart attack is an emergency as can lead to cardiac arrest and sudden death. Heart failure can be ongoing for several years and treated with drugs or surgical procedure.

[jasmin26]

Thank you , my mam is in hospital with heart failure and although it was explained to me , I don't think I took it all in.

[Jackdaw33]

A heart attack is an acute condition requiring immediate treatment. Heart failure is used to describe a chronic condition, in which the heart is not doing its job as well as it should, and is amenable to treatment, drug therapy or surgery.

[xstitcher]

Hope your mum will be ok jasmine.

[woofgang]

sorry to hear that, the patient link i posted has loads of useful info put very simply

[Peter Pedant]

They might have been saying she was in heart failure ( shortness of breath, inability to lie flat, ankle swelling ) as a result of having had a heart attack ( block of a small artery in the heart )

[237SJ]

PP in my experience, people who have had a heart attack don`t go into heart failure. They do into cardiac arrest.

[Sqad]

Yes...a heart attack is a sudden onset phenomenon, almost always due to blockage of a major coronary artery.

Heart failure is a chronic condition due to the heart failing to pump blood to vital organs and has many causes.

Heart Failure can however have a sudden onset.

[jasmin26]

mam was offered a bypass a while ago which she refused. Does this mean its to late to have it now ?

[Sqad]

No certainly not.......if angiograms shoe that her heart failure is due to insufficient blood passing through her coronary arteries, then she may be offered stenting or bypass surgery.

[Sqad]

PP

\\\ as a result of having had a heart attack ( block of a small artery in the heart )\\\

Blockage of a small artery is no big deal, it is blockage of the major coronary arteries that cause the trouble.

[jasmin26]

Thanks Sqad , she is 81 and refused it as she said she was too old, I think she was actually scared by the prospect to be honest

[Sqad]

LOL....81 is no age and they may well put a stent in rather than bypass, depending upon the angiograms.

[jasmin26]

we tried to tell her that Sqad but she wouldn't listen.

[woofgang]

more than 20 years ago I knew a 90 YO who had turned down a pacemaker at age 85. He was in bed and couldn't do a thing till he changed his mind and they paced him (had been in hospital, they kept long stay patients then.) Went home to live with his daughter happy as Larry.