David Brown Mar 25, 2011:

Heart failure There was a short debate a few years ago in the BMJ on whether to call "heart failure" "cardiac impairment" or "cardiac insufficiency" for the same reason Jason mentioned (it messes up causes of death statistics). Also many doctors do not like to use the term as a disease when communicating to the patient and some prefer to use the lay term "weak heart" and then explain that "Heart failure" is the medical term used to indicate the presence of a weak heart.



http://www.bmj.com/content/331/7514/415.extract

Otto Albers (X) Mar 25, 2011:

I refer to any article on Chagas disease, congestive heart failure, very common in areas where the Trypanozoma cruzi is rampant( the tropics). In this case the heart gets weaker and weaker as time passes, thus more inefficient as a pump. Heart failure is the result of the interaction of a causative agent on the efficiency of the heart as a pump. Cardiac insufficiency does not necessarily mean death; it's a health condition that might eventually lead to that.

Dr. Jason Faulkner Mar 25, 2011:

There seems to be a common misconception that heart failure is only a cause of death and not a disease. There are many types of heart failure, the most widely known being congestive heart failure. Patients can suffer from heart failure for quite some time on medical treatment before dying of any number of diseases.

Also, listing heart failure or the very popular "paro cardiorespiratorio" (cardiopulmonary arrest) is not a valid cause of death on a death certificate. All deaths end in cardiopulmonary arrest. It isn't the cause, it's the endpoint. Listing paro cardiorespiratorio as the primary cause of death really gums up public health records. I've been preaching this to any student, intern or resident within earshot for years. Unfortunately, that's usually the only time they'll hear of this because we never got a class on how to fill out a death certificate in 6 years of medical school.