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Heart valve disease occurs if one or more of your heart valves don't work well. The heart has four valves—the tricuspid, pulmonary, mitral, and aortic valves—that make sure blood flows in the right direction through your heart’s four chambers and to the rest of your body.

If you are living with heart failure, you should follow your lifelong treatment plan, take steps to prevent heart failure from getting worse, plan ahead, and obtain emotional support.

You can take action to prevent heart disease and heart failure by avoiding illegal drugs, being physically active, following a heart-healthy eating plan, quitting smoking, and maintaining a healthy weight.

Your doctor will diagnose heart failure based on your medical and family histories, a physical exam, and results from one or more tests: electrocardiogram (EKG), chest x ray, B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) blood test, echocardiography, Doppler ultrasound, Holter monitor, nuclear heart scan, cardiac catheterization, coronary angiography, stress testing, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and thyroid function tests.

The most common signs and symptoms of heart failure are shortness of breath, fatigue, and swelling in the ankles, feet, legs, abdomen, and veins in the neck.

Heart failure is more common in people age 65 or older, blacks, people who are overweight, and people who have had a heart attack. Children who have congenital heart defects also can develop heart failure.

Conditions that damage or overwork the heart muscle can cause the heart to weaken, including coronary heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, other heart conditions, and other factors.

Heart failure is a condition in which the heart can't pump enough blood to meet the body's needs because it can't fill with enough blood and/or can't pump blood to the rest of the body with enough force.

Certain risk factors make it more likely that you'll develop coronary heart disease and have a heart attack. Risk factors you can control include smoking, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, overweight and obesity, unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity, and high blood sugar due to insulin resistance or diabetes. Risk factors you can’t control include age, family history of early heart disease, and preeclampsia.

A heart attack happens when the flow of oxygen-rich blood to a section of heart muscle suddenly becomes blocked and the heart can’t get oxygen. If you think you or someone else may be having heart attack symptoms or a heart attack, call 9–1–1 for emergency medical care.