Health Insurance announced on Tuesday, September 20, the launch of an awareness campaign on heart failure, which affects at least 1.5 million French people. At the origin of a “deterioration in quality of life, repeated hospitalizations, death”this disease is “fraught with consequences”, underlines the National Health Insurance Fund (Cnam). However, the number of people concerned, currently “underestimated because patients are slow to be diagnosed”should “progress by 25% every four years”.
Against a background of improving life expectancy, heart failure increases with age, affecting 10% of seniors aged 70 and over. If this disease mainly affects people over 60, “its incidence increases before the age of 55, as in other European countries, due to lifestyle habits that are harmful to health (smoking, sedentary lifestyle, diet)”also notes the Cnam.
Deeming this pathology too poorly known, the Health Insurance will launch a campaign on September 25 under the slogan: “Heart failure: what if your heart was trying to tell you something?” It will be used in the press, on the radio, on television and on social networks in order to“improve knowledge of heart failure, warning signs and thus promote early diagnosis, by encouraging patients to talk about it with their doctor”.
“Unusual shortness of breath, rapid weight gain, edema of the feet and ankles, excessive fatigue”isolation… These symptoms are not “not specific to the disease but their association or their recent occurrence should suggest heart failure”, underlines the Health Insurance. Health professionals (doctors and paramedics) will also be made aware by Health Insurance via their specific information channels.