Advanced Heart Disease

Small, Implantable Device Gives Heart Failure Patient Lifesaving Data

About 12 years ago, Deborah Martinezwas admitted to Mt. Graham Hospital in Safford with pneumonia. “An echocardiogram showed I had heart disease, but it didn’t really affect me until about two years ago when I became really sick,” said Martinez. She has a genetic condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which leads to thickening of the heart muscle, often making the heart stiff and less able to relax and fill with blood.

Avoid Heart Failure: Don't Pass Stage A

About 6.5 million people in the United States have heart failure and about 960,000 are diagnosed for the first time each year, according to the Heart Failure Society of America. Increasing awareness and preventing heart failure could go a long way toward lowering health care costs since it is the primary reason for 12 to 15 million office visits and 6.5 million hospital days each year.    

Mechanical Devices Buy Quality Time for Patients with Advanced Heart Disease

The burden of heart failure is enormous in the United States. About 960,000 patients receive a new diagnosis every year, including 70,000 patients who are categorized as stage 4 or end-stage heart failure. The cost of care is estimated to be more than $10 billion per year.

Following a diagnosis of heart failure, the average survival is sobering – about 1.7 years for men and 3.7 years for women.

Advanced Heart Disease

Heart failure occurs when the heart cannot pump or fill with adequate blood, forcing the heart to work harder to deliver blood to the body. It also is called congestive heart failure, pulmonary edema, fluid on the lungs or ventricular dysfunction. Meet our Advanced Heart Disease Team and learn more about prevention and treatment options. Please click on a title below to learn more about these topics.

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