Managing Heart Failure at Home

Learning that you have heart failure can be incredibly disorienting and worrying, but one thing that surprises many people is that they’re able to remain living at home as long as they manage their symptoms. Heart failure might make you fatigued, breathless, lightheaded and confused. Having to move to a nursing home or hospital setting may only make these symptoms worse, so many healthcare professionals recommend managing heart failure at home for as long as possible.

The majority of people with heart failure find that managing their symptoms on their own is easier than they imagined. From keeping up with medications to knowing when to contact your doctor, managing heart failure symptoms is possible – but you don’t have to do it alone if you’re struggling. Today, we’ll explore how this is possible and provide practical tips to help.

Understanding heart failure and its symptoms

If you’re planning on managing heart failure symptoms at home, the first thing to do is make sure you fully understand how it can affect you.

A common misconception is that this disease means your heart is at risk of stopping sooner rather than later, which is a scary thought. However, this is not the case. Heart failure actually means that your heart isn’t able to pump blood around the body as well as it should. This usually happens because the heart muscle has become enlarged or stiff.

Here are some of the most common symptoms you may experience:

Breathlessness after activity or at rest, making you feel like you can’t breathe or are breathing too quickly
Feeling very tired, especially when doing normal activities
Swollen ankles and legs, caused by a build up of fluid or age-related conditions
Feeling lightheaded or even fainting, making you feel like you’re floating or dizzy as a result of a drop in blood pressure
A new or worsening cough, including wheezing or a whistling sound when breathing
A bloated stomach, where your tummy feels like it’s uncomfortably full and in pain
A loss of appetite, usually accompanied by weight loss or weight gain
Confusion and becoming forgetful, not being able to remember simple things or how to complete tasks you used to do before heart failure
A fast-beating or fluttering heart, otherwise known as palpitations
Feelings of anxiety and depression, including uneasiness, worry, fear and worthlessness for weeks or months, rather than just a few days

Heart failure affects everyone differently, and there are several reasons why you might be experiencing it, including a heart attack, cardiomyopathy, and high blood pressure. It can happen at any age, but it’s more common in older people, and heart failure may occur quickly or build up slowly over months or even years.

Practical tips for managing your heart failure at home

Unfortunately, heart failure can’t be cured – but there are still several steps to take to help manage your condition and prevent it from getting worse. Again, heart failure affects everyone differently, so it’s about looking at your symptoms and finding suitable lifestyle changes that can improve your specific journey.

Here are some practical tips to help manage the majority of symptoms you may be facing:

Keep up with your medication

Heart failure is a long-term condition that triggers the body’s emergency signalling systems. While these symptoms are beneficial in short periods of acute stress or an emergent situation, they can sometimes cause more harm than good when triggered for too long. This is one of the reasons why heart disease becomes worse over time.

The good news is that ACE inhibitors and beta-blockers are two medications that switch off these emergency signalling systems. Your doctor may prescribe these to you to manage symptoms and make you feel more comfortable while performing daily activities with heart failure.

It’s incredibly important to take your medications as prescribed, so set daily alarms to make sure you remember. Medication holders with the days of the week on them can be really helpful, letting you easily see whether you’ve taken it yet for the day.

Explore safe ways to remain active

You may think that you need to stop activity to protect your heart, but this isn’t the case at all. Actually, it’s important to stay as active as possible. Giving a heart failure patient the advice to ‘take it easy’ is one of the worst things you can say – it weakens the body and makes it lose its resilience as a result.

Instead, regular and safe exercise reduces daily symptoms and even prevents sudden deterioration. The most important thing is to find ways to remain active without making yourself feel unwell or worse than you did before.

Ways to keep active while managing heart failure include:

Walking
Swimming
Cycling
Weight training
Light gardening
Yoga or Tai Chi
Chair-based exercises

If you’re worried about getting active and the strain it could put on your heart, consult your GP or cardiologist beforehand. They’ll be able to help you make a plan that boosts your heart health instead of risking it, and give you reassurance that this is the right thing to do.

Keep a symptom diary

The quicker you notice any changes to your heart failure symptoms, the better the outcome may be. Your doctor wants to know if something changes, including the new development of symptoms or current symptoms getting worse. One of the easiest ways to do this is by keeping a symptom diary, where you note down every symptom experienced each day. You can show this at your routine appointments or flag anything you find worrying beforehand.

New or worsening symptoms might mean that your current treatment is no longer working. For example, just a 1-2lb increase in weight can be significant, as it may indicate that fluid is building up in your body.

To continue managing heart failure at home, your cardiologist might want to change up your care plan. The sooner they know about the changes in your symptoms, the quicker they can get to work, hopefully making you feel better again.

Eat a healthy diet

A healthy, balanced diet can improve symptoms and your general health, letting you live a happier, more comfortable life. Your balanced diet should include:

Lots of fruit and vegetables
Plenty of starchy foods, like potatoes, bread, rice and pasta
Some dairy or dairy alternatives
Beans and pulses, fish, eggs, meat and other sources of protein
Small amounts of saturated fats, salt and sugar

You might’ve been given advice from your healthcare provider about what to eat and drink to manage your heart failure, so make sure you stick to what your doctor tells you. For example, some people are told to limit their water intake to avoid fluid build up, which can lead to a hospital stay.

Consider changing your habits

Certain habits, like smoking and drinking alcohol, can increase the risk of certain health conditions – and they may make your existing heart failure symptoms worse. It’s advisable to quit smoking to reduce how quickly your heart failure progresses, so speak to your GP if you’d like support on how to do this.

Many people continue drinking up to 14 alcohol units a week when managing heart failure, but if your symptoms are directly related to alcohol, your doctor might advise you to stop entirely.

Attend all of your regular reviews and monitoring

Your cardiologist or GP will want to see you regularly to monitor your condition, around every six months or so. These appointments may include talking about your symptoms, discussing your medication and carrying out routine tests to monitor your health.

These appointments may feel arbitrary and unhelpful, especially if you’ve seen no change in your symptoms, mood or health since the last review. However, your doctor might be able to spot something you can’t in your symptom diary or test results – and the earlier they detect something wrong, the quicker they’ll be able to treat it.

Making your home safe for you

Managing your symptoms at home is easier when your space works for you rather than against you. Making small differences around your house can leave a lasting impact on the future of your condition, helping you conserve energy throughout the day and making you feel more independent.

There are several simple adaptations to make around the home to increase mobility without putting a strain on your heart. These include:

Install grab bars or handrails where you may have trouble getting up.
Add chairs to where you often feel fatigued, such as in the shower or by the kitchen worktops.
Keep your most-used items in an easy-to-reach place like baskets near your favourite chair.
Prepare heart-healthy meals and snacks so you’re more inclined to grab these instead of unhealthy alternatives.
Move things around to make sure walkways are wide enough for mobility aids, such as walking frames and wheelchairs.

Taking things day by day

Being diagnosed and dealing with the symptoms of heart failure can be really difficult to come to terms with, and it’s not uncommon for people to feel anxious or overwhelmed during this time. One of the best ways to manage heart failure at home is by taking things each step at a time.

You could do this by:

Planning your day the night before so you know exactly what’s coming next.
Prioritising your tasks so you can complete important things when you have the most energy.
Maintaining a simple daily routine to avoid pushing yourself too much and feeling worse towards the end of the day.
Designate specific times and days in your week for regular chores like cleaning or food shopping.

Remember, there’s no shame in asking for help when you need it. If you feel like you’re struggling to stay afloat when managing heart failure at home, there are several people who can help. Your doctor, family, friends or a trusted carer may be able to shoulder some of the burden and keep you living life to the fullest despite your diagnosis.

How Trinity Homecare can help

Heart disease can be disabling and distressing for people with it. Many find that having someone to assist with daily activities and listen to their concerns and fears is a huge help. At Trinity Homecare, we’re committed to providing exceptional care to all our clients, whether they need quick visits for emotional support and help with big tasks like shopping or more extensive aid from a live-in carer.

The care we provide includes:

One-to-one support at home
Completely bespoke live-in care that has been tailored to you
Specialist care for a number of different circumstances
Home carers carefully matched to your needs
CQC rated ‘Outstanding’ live-in care services

Our carers are all trained and equipped to support you when managing your heart failure at home. Not only will they help in any way you need, such as bathing, dressing, and preparing meals, but they can also track symptoms and look out for signs of your disease progressing. Trinity Homecare carers offer support and peace of mind for not only people with heart disease, but their loved ones too.

Talk to us today

If your loved one requires home care, chat with one of our friendly care team today. We offer a free, no-obligation enquiry and assessment service and are happy to offer information and advice to help you find the perfect home care solution.

Call us on 020 4572 5583 in confidence for a free no obligation quotation. If enquiring outside of our opening hours, please complete our online form and we will contact you the next day.