Clinical & Experimental Cardiology
Open Access

Congestive Heart Failure

ongestive heart failure is the most common cause of hospital admissions among elderly patients. It is the reason for at least 20 percent of all hospital admissions among persons older than 65. The American Heart Association reports that nearly 5.7 million Americans have heart failure today, with an incidence approaching 10 per 1000 among persons older than 65 years of age. According to the CDC, the prevalence of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) in the United States was on the rise from 1980-1995 and the rate of hospitalizations for heart failure also increased by 159 percent within the same time period. There is also an enormous fiscal burden of Congestive heart failure; the condition currently amounts to about 1-2% of the US total annual health care costs (approximately 39 billion dollars). The national impact of this condition on Medicare is expected to get worse as the baby boomers begin to turn 65. argest study of its kind to explore the influence of DVT on mortality among patients hospitalized with heart failure across the United States. The findings from this study show that lower extremity DVT is associated with increased mortality among CHF patients. It also showed that patients hospitalized with CHF who have prolonged hospital courses are more likely to be diagnosed with DVT. We observed that patients who were admitted for 4-7 days were 2.5 times as likely to develop DVT as patients admitted for less than 3 days. While those who stayed between 8- 13 days were 4.1 times more likely to develop DVT than those admitted for less than 3 days. It also showed that DVT among patients with CHF is an independent predictor of mortality. Patients hospitalized with CHF who have prolonged hospital course were more likely to develop DVT. The occurrence of DVT in this population was also found to be an independent predictor of mortality after controlling for other co-morbidities. We propose that discharge planning with early mobilization and physical therapy be instituted as soon as possible in these patients to reduce their duration of hospital stay and risk of DVT and mortality. OMICS Group International is an open access online publishing group which has 700+ peer-reviewed journals, organizes 3000+ International Scientific Conferences per year, have around 50,000+ editorial board members and 1000+ Scientific associations. Medical Journals provide a platform for outstanding research around the globe in the field of medicine. These scholarly journals aim to contribute to the progress and application of scientific discoveries, by providing free access to the research information. The published work reaches the general public and the scientific community immediately after publication, thus providing higher citation rates for the author. Medical Journals are supported by 5000 internationally renowned editorial board members and a high quality review board. Medical Journals use online Editorial Manager System for quick and high quality review process. Articles of Medical journals are subjected to peer reviewing and these are included in the standard indexing databases like ISI, Scopus, EBSCO, CAS, HINARI etc. All the articles published in Medical journals are permanently archived in respective peer reviewed journals thus providing unrestricted utilization and requisition of the scientific information.