Clinical and functional characteristics of chronic heart failure in different age groups

Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a common complication of many cardiovascular diseases. It is important to study the clinical and functional features of CHF to clarify the further prognosis of this disease due to the unfavorable course and high mortality rate. Diagnosis and treatment of CHF is an issue for doctors of various specialties, in particular when it comes to geriatric patients with multiple concomitant diseases. Various physiological and morphological transformations in the aging population contribute to heart failure. The most common type of HF in older people is HF with preserved ejection fraction. Atypical clinical symptoms of CHF are much more common in elderly people than in young people. The prevalence of HF with age is associated with a longer period of influence of damaging factors on the heart, such as arterial hypertension, metabolic stress or ischemia-related damage. Due to the unfavorable course and high mortality rate, it is important to study the clinical and functional characteristics of CHF to clarify its prognosis. However, the data available on this issue vary significantly; the mechanisms, issues of diagnosis and treatment of patients with heart failure in different age groups have not been sufficiently studied, which determined the purpose of this study ‒ to investigate the features of the clinical and functional characteristics of CHF depending on age. Material and methods. The study included 90 male and female patients with diagnosed CHF stages I-IIB, NYHA functional class I-IV, aged 40–86 years, who underwent echocardiography, general and biochemical blood tests. The patients were divided into two groups: group 1 – patients of working age (women 16–54 years old and men 16–59 years old, n = 20), group 2 – patients older than working age (women 55 years and older, men 60 years and older, n = 70). Results and its discussion. According to the data obtained, the average age of all surveyed was 68.1 ± 9.8 years. The second stage of CHF prevailed in both the first and second groups of the studied categories of participants. Atypical symptoms prevailed, which creates difficulties in its diagnosis and treatment. The frequency of CHF decompensation in patients over working age, as well as the concentration of natriuretic peptide, is higher compared to the group of CHF patients of working age, which is probably due to the presence of comorbid pathology and cognitive deficit. The data obtained can be used to develop an approach to stratify the risk of CHF.

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