Symptoms of a Weak Heart Make an Appointment Ask a Question Search Conditions National Jewish Health Cardiologist Andrew Freeman, MD explains the symptoms of congestive heart failure and how to prevent it. Related Videos 3 Keys to a Healthy Heart Heart Attack Symptoms in Women What is Chest Pain? 4 Ways to Prevent Heart Disease What Is a Heart Murmur? What Causes a Heart Attack? Breath Test or Heart Rate? Angina = Heart Attack Transcript Cardiologist break congestive heart failure into two things: HFpEF and HFrEF. That's heart failure, preserved injection fraction, and heart failure, reduced injection fraction. One is when the heart is strong, but doesn’t relax as well as it once did. It’s a little stiff. It doesn’t fill or empty as well as it once did, but the overall function is still strong. And, that’s much more commonly seen in the elderly. The type that usually shows up with symptoms a little bit earlier, is heart failure with reduced injection fraction. That means that the heart is weak, and the heart can get weak for a variety of reasons, but the most common is coronary disease. When the heart is weak we have a whole slew of medicines and treatments that we use, but it doesn’t always recover, and those people are subject to swelling and retention of fluid much more often. Want to use this on your website? Fill out the content usage request form and then copy this code: