View clinical trials related to Congestive Heart Failure.
Filter by:This is a study to determine the feasibility of obtaining information stored in existing Medtronic internal defibrillators in patients who present to the Emergency Department(ED) for any reason. In addition, the study will determine if this information is useful to the ED physician in managing the patient's care, specifically as it relates to heart failure.
Trouble breathing (dyspnea) is a nonspecific symptom associated with many diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (lung disorder in which the flow of air to the lungs is blocked), asthma, pneumonia, pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in the lungs), congestive heart failure (fluid build-up in the lungs because the heart is not pumping normally) and pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lungs). The purpose of this study is to test two blood markers called ST2 and IL-33. Blood markers are proteins or other compounds in your blood that physicians use to diagnose different diseases and to determine what the course of an illness will be. In preliminary research studies, ST2 and IL-33 have been elevated in patients with a wide variety of diseases where the lungs are the primary organs involved. This research study will further investigate the ability of ST2 and IL-33 to predict the severity of disease and the possible use of ST2 and IL-33 in the diagnosis of various lung diseases.
OSA is associated with large negative swings in the intrathoracic pressure, significant increase in the sympathetic nerve activity and repetitive surges in blood pressure, along with episodic hypoxia and hypercapnea (8,9). These autonomic and respiratory changes may increase the cardiac muscle workload, cardiac dysrrhythmia, and exacerbate ischemia (10,11,12). Treatment with CPAP is the most successful therapeutic modality available for OSA. It is still not clear whether establishing the diagnosis of OSA and initiating treatment with CPAP while still in the hospital carries any benefit in the management of patients with acute heart failure. This study will evaluate the effect of work up and treatment of OSA on the outcome of patients hospitalized with acute CHF.
This research study is a randomized trial to evaluate a training program that is designed to improve the communication skills of clinicians. The training program focuses on care for patients with serious illnesses and their family members, and assesses effectiveness using patient and family outcomes. The long term goal of this research is to improve communication skills of doctors and nurses, thereby improving patient and family outcomes.
The treatment and follow-up of congestive heart failure (CHF) represents a major part of France's health expenses. The beneficial effects of cardiac rehabilitation is well established, especially regarding the reduction of dyspnea, exercise limitation and fatigue and leads ultimately to a better quality of life. Maintaining these benefits in secondary prevention requires an improvement in daily physical activity, which is challenging and supposes a close follow-up difficult to perform on a daily living basis. However, a better knowledge of the type and dose of daily physical activity of this population would be very beneficial for the practitioner to prescribe or advise individually the type and the dose of physical activity required to maintain the benefits of cardiac rehabilitation. To date, only a physical activity questionnaire adapted to CHF could provide information regarding both the type and dose of daily physical activity. Such a questionnaire has been developed by our research team and allows an estimation of daily energy expenditure as well as the daily energy expended in its physical activity dimensions (rest, activities < 3 MET, activities between 3 and 5 MET, and activities > 5 MET). During its first step of validation, daily and physical activity energy expenditure estimated by this questionnaire was correlated to various factors of physical condition and notably, to peak V'O2 (R=0.71), prognostic factor largely recognized in CHF. A second step of validation was a pilot study comparing the estimation of daily energy expenditure by the questionnaire with a measurement of free-living daily energy expenditure with the doubly labelled water (DLW) method in 11 middle-aged males patients suffering CHF (NYHA I to III). Daily energy expenditure estimated from the questionnaire was very close to daily energy expenditure measured from the DLW method (R2 = 0.81; individual relative error < 7%). However, the high cost of the DLW method reduced the population studied to a small sample, which is a major limitation of this study since the sample was somewhat different to general CHF population in France.
T-wave alternans is a test that is currently being used to risk stratify patients with structural heart disease for sudden cardiac death. The mechanism of T-wave alternans is unclear, but may share a common abnormality with conditions of cardiac fluid overload such as heart failure, which is altered intracellular calcium handling. Current Medtronic implantable defibrillators have the capability of monitoring cardiac fluid status via transthoracic impedance measurements. The purpose of this study is to determine if a correlation exists between T-wave alternans status and cardiac volume status, as determined by transthoracic impedance measurements. Secondarily, the study seeks to examine the relationship between arrhythmia frequency and T-wave alternans or cardiac volume status.
The purpose of this study is to compare cardiac output results obtained using the thermodilution push technique with the Pulmonary Arterial Catheter (PAC) to the predicted cardiac output results obtained from the non-invasive FloWave™ 1000 device.
The purpose of this study is to assess the effects of nesiritide compared to placebo when given with standard of care therapies, on kidney function, heart function and the need of other treatments in heart failure patients undergoing heart bypass graft surgery that requires the use of a cardiopulmonary bypass machine (CPB pump or heart-lung machine).
A study to determine the most appropriate dose of MK7418 in heart failure patients presenting with symptoms of volume overload requiring increased diuretic doses.
This is a randomized, open-label, three-way crossover design study with 3 treatment groups:TREATMENT A: Furosemide;TREATMENT B: Nesiritide administered IV bolus, followed by an infusion for 6 hours;TREATMENT C: Treatment B for at least 15 minutes, then administration of treatment AAll sequences involving both furosemide and nesiritide had the nesiritide infusion started first, at least 15 minutes before furosemide was administered. Each treatment will be administered according to 1 of 6 sequences to which patients are randomized. Patients will remain in the Clinical Research Unit for 7 days, with treatments administered on Days 2, 4, and 6, with equilibrium (rest) days on Days 1, 3, and 5. All patients will be followed for safety throughout the treatment phase, and by telephone between 7 and 14 days after they are discharged from the Clinical Research Unit.