Chronic Heart Failure

This book deals with two essential aspects in chronic heartfailure: The quality of life of chronic heart failure pa-tients and nitrate therapy.In the first part the quality of life of patients sufferingfrom chronic heart failure is for the first time addressedon an interdisciplinary level. These patients' physical,mental-emotional, and social conditions are being approachedfrom numerous and diverse points of view, including amongothers those of (a) the patient himself, (b) the patient'sfamily, (c) the general practitioner, (d) the cardiologists,(e) the heart surgeon, (f) the hospital resident, (g) theepidemiologists, and (h) the health economist. All theseaspects aretreated by prominent experts of the differentdisciplines concerned. One of the conclusions suggested isthat quality of life considerations should be given greaterscope when planning the development of new drugs for thesepatients.The second part of the book covers new aspects of nitratetherapy in heart failure and acute myocardial infarctionpointing out the importance of remodelling as a mechanismafter acute myocardial infarction and treatment with nitra-tes as a possible prevention of chronic heart failure play-ing arole in early remodelling of the heart.