EXCLUSIVE
French cardiologists sound the alarm. While the congress of the European Society of Cardiology is taking place right now in Paris, professionals want to warn about the dangers of heart failure, which affects more than a million French people. If the number of patients could explode in the future because of the aging of the population, a study published Wednesday morning, conducted with French patients, highlights the shortcomings in terms of patient care, between screening too late , and patients poorly followed and treated afterwards.
According to this survey, nearly half of patients hospitalized with emergency heart failure have actually had symptoms of the disease for several weeks. Even more worrying, for a third of them, the signs that their heart muscle was malfunctioning had begun more than two months ago.
"It is still believed that heart failure only affects the elderly subject"
But in France, both on the patients 'side and sometimes on the doctors' side, we know little or nothing about the symptoms that should alert us. And this, while there are only four. To see more clearly, doctors have grouped these symptoms under the acronym EPOF. "E for shortness of breath, P for rapid weight gain, O for edema, that is, swelling of the legs, and F for abnormal fatigue," says Dr. Florence Beauvais, a cardiologist at Lariboisière Hospital in Paris.
"If we have a combination of these four signs, it's clear that we need to think about heart failure," she says, before breaking down a misconception that heart failure can affect " even young patients, under 50 years old ". "It is still believed that heart failure is only for the elderly, this is false," says Dr. Florence Beauvais.
Finally, this study also shows that, even after a hospitalization for heart failure, the medical care leaves something to be desired. While 100% of patients should be admitted to cardiac rehabilitation, these centers where they are taught for example how to play sports with this pathology, or how to eat well, only one in ten patients benefits in France.