Stress Echocardiography in Aortic Stenosis: Insights into Valve Mechanics and Hemodynamics

Role of Echocardiography in the Diagnostic Assessment and Etiology of Heart Failure in the Elderly—Opacify, Quantify, and Rectify

Echocardiography offers comprehensive, noninvasive, and relatively inexpensive tools for diagnosing cardiac pathology in the elderly. With an organized approach using two-dimensional echocardiography and Doppler echocardiography, clinicians can determine the systolic and diastolic left ventricular performance; estimate the cardiac output, pulmonary artery, and ventricular filling pressures; and identify surgically correctable valve disease. Meanwhile, real-time three-dimensional echocardiography provides unprecedented volume data to quantify the left ventricular status. Tissue Doppler-derived myocardial velocity and strain imaging data provide extremely fine details about the regional variations in myocardial synchrony and predict responders to cardiac resynchronization therapy. Thus, echocardiographic tools provide the basis for determining when to attempt to rectify the left ventricular dysfunction with strategically placed, biventricular pacemaker leads.

Role of echocardiography in the diagnostic assessment and etiology of heart failure in the elderly--opacify, quantify, and rectify

Echocardiography offers comprehensive, noninvasive, and relatively inexpensive tools for diagnosing cardiac pathology in the elderly. With an organized approach using two-dimensional echocardiography and Doppler echocardiography, clinicians can determine the systolic and diastolic left ventricular performance;estimate the cardiac output, pulmonary artery, and ventricular fill-ing pressures; and identify surgically correctable valve disease.Meanwhile, real-time three-dimensional echocardiography provides unprecedented volume data to quantify the left ventricular status. Tissue Doppler-derived myocardial velocity and strain imaging data provide extremely fine details about the regional variations in myocardial synchrony and predict responders to cardiac resynchronization therapy. Thus, echocardiographic tools provide the basis for determining when to attempt to rectify the left ventricular dysfunction with strategically placed, biventricular pace-maker leads.

Role of echocardiography in the diagnosis and management of heart failure in the elderly

Heart failure is the most common cause of cardiovascular hospitalization in older adults in the United States. This disease is common, disabling, and commonly fatal, especially in the elderly population. Hypertension and coronary artery disease are the leading causes of heart failure. A precise diagnosis of the cardiac abnormality is paramount for adequate treatment, and echocardiography offers the most comprehensive, noninvasive evaluation. With an organized approach using two-dimensional and Doppler echocardiography, the systolic and diastolic left ventricular performance can be determined; the cardiac output, pulmonary artery, and ventricular filling pressures can be estimated; and surgically correctable valve disease can be identified. The response and success of treatment also may be monitored by the judicious use of echocardiography.