Your prognosis or outlook for the future will depend on how well your heart muscle is functioning,
your symptoms, and how well you respond to and follow your treatment plan. With the right care,
heart failure will not stop you from doing the things you enjoy.
Heart Failure is generally a progressive disease with periods of stability. The course of the disease
in any given patient is extremely variable. Factors involved in determining the long term outlook
(prognosis) for a given patient include the:
nature of the underlying heart disease
response to medications
degree to which other organ systems are involved
severity of other accompanying conditions
patient's symptoms and degree of impairment
availability of newer drugs to potentially favorably affect the progression of disease.
The prognosis of Heart Failure is generally more favorable than that observed just 10 years ago. In some cases, especially when the heart muscle dysfunction has recently developed, a significant spontaneous improvement is not uncommonly observed, even to the point where heart function becomes normal.
