💔 Let’s talk about HF medications 👏🏻⁠
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🧠 Understanding heart failure (HF) medications can be difficult if you don’t understand the underlying pathophysiology of the condition. ⁠
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🤓 Check out the slides to learn more about the pathophysiology of heart failure that leads to the common symptoms seen. ⁠
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✨ Goals of therapy are to manage structural heart disease, reduce morbidity and mortality, decrease Na+ and water retention, and eliminate or minimize HF symptoms. ⁠
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✨ The cornerstones of HF treatment are medications targeted towards decreasing the activity of compensatory mechanisms and improving cardiac workload, controlling excess fluid, and enhancing cardiac contractility. ⁠
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⭐️ Loop diuretics: control symptoms of fluid overload (e.g., shortness of breath, edema)⁠
⭐️ ACE/ARBs/ARNIs: shown to decrease mortality; recommended in ALL pt. with HFrEF ⁠
⭐️ Beta-blockers: shown to decrease mortality when added to an ACE inhibitor; recommended in ALL patients with HFrEF⁠
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👉🏻 Check out the full review of HF medications in our F-R-E-E Heart Failure Guide which includes a mind map coloring page and heart failure drug table!