Practical heart failure information for patients, families, and caregivers
Skip navigation links
UNDERSTANDING HEART FAILURE
TOPICS
Introduction
What is heart failure?
How does the normal heart work?
What goes wrong in heart failure?
What are the different types of heart failure?
Symptoms of heart failure
What causes heart failure?
Common tests for heart failure
How can heart failure change over time?
Myths and facts about heart failure
Test your knowledge
Multi-slice computer tomography (MSCT)
Myths and facts about heart failure
Taking your own blood pressure and heart rate (pulse)

Past heart attacks 

Bookmark and Share
 
Animation:
Animation explaining how a heart
attack can cause heart failure
Heart failure animation
Play the animation
 

Heart attacks are the most common cause of heart failure.

If you have a heart attack one of the arteries supplying your heart muscle itself has become completely blocked, cutting off the blood supply. This means that oxygen and nourishment can't get to that part of your heart muscle, causing it to die. Your remaining healthy heart muscle then has to pump harder to compensate, putting more workload onto your heart than it can handle. This can lead to heart failure (over several months or years).

Return to What causes heart failure?

 

 

 
Copyright 2007© Heart Failure Matters. All rights reserved.