Welcome to www.heartfailurematters.org, the patient website of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology.
The animation below shows that if your heart valves don't work properly, your heart has to work harder to keep enough blood moving in the correct direction. This additional workload can become too much for your heart and heart failure develops.
To view these animations, you need Adobe Flash Player. If the animation does not appear below, click here to download (2 min @ 56K modem).