Heart Failure Treatment

Expert care and advanced procedures to treat heart failure at any stage

Heart failure occurs when your heart can’t pump enough blood for your body. Although it is a lifelong condition, treatment for heart failure can manage the symptoms and may allow your heart to gain strength.

The team in our Advanced Heart Failure Program is renowned for its innovations to improve treatment options and quality of care. Our doctors implanted the first HeartWare left ventricular assist device (LVAD) in the country and performed the first heart transplant in the District of Columbia. We continue to improve on these procedures while also aggressively pursuing even more effective therapies.

Types of heart failure treatment

The goals of heart failure treatment are to relieve symptoms and improve quality and length of life. In the earlier stages of the condition, your treatment plan may include make lifestyle changes such as:

• Eating a heart-healthy, low-salt diet
• Exercising
• Maintaining a healthy weight
• Quitting smoking

Medications can improve the heart’s function and your ability to live a more normal life. Medications you may be prescribed could include:

• Diuretics to reduce fluid buildup
• ACE inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) to lower blood pressure
• Beta blockers to slow your heart rate and lower your blood pressure
• Aldosterone blockers to help prevent your body from holding onto fluids
• Hydralazine/isosorbide to relax your blood vessels
• Inotropes to increase your heart’s squeezing capacity. Only select centers like ours can send patients home on these powerful medications

More serious cases of heart failure may need advanced treatment. Your doctor may recommend one or more of the following treatment options:

• Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO): ECMO pumps your blood through a machine so your heart doesn’t have to work as hard to deliver oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body. This therapy often is used after heart surgery or before getting a ventricular assist device to allow your heart time to rest and recover.
• Implantable devices: Devices such as implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) or pacemakers may be used to regulate or start your heart using electrical pulses.
• Ventricular assist devices (VAD): Also known as mechanical circulatory support devices, VADs help pump blood from the ventricles (the main pumping chambers of your heart) to the rest of your body. The most common of these devices is the left ventricular assist device (LVAD).
• Surgery: Your doctor may recommend a coronary artery bypass surgery to restore normal blood flow in a blocked artery, heart valve surgery to repair or replace a damaged valve, or a heart transplant to replace your failing heart with a healthier one from a donor.

We’re also one of the first advanced heart failure programs to integrate palliative care along every step of treatment for a personalized and holistic team approach.

Conditions

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