UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute Advanced Heart Failure Director Leads New Scientific Statement on Co-Morbid Cognitive Impairment

Innovations in Cardiovascular Medicine & Surgery | Winter 2024

NEWS BRIEF

Eiran Z. Gorodeski, MD, PhD

The Heart Failure Society of America (HFSA) has issued an important new scientific statement on the pressing and common issue of cognitive impairment among patients living with heart failure, with valuable input from co-lead author Eiran Z. Gorodeski, MD, MPH, Director of the Advanced Heart Failure & Transplant Center at University Hospitals (UH) Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute. Dr. Gorodeski also holds the Daniel I. Simon, MD, Chair in Cardiovascular Excellence at UH, and is a Professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

“Cognitive impairment is not the exception; it’s the norm for our patients with heart failure,” Dr. Gorodeski says. “In this statement, we summarize the state of the art, as well as the challenges and the unknowns.”

In fact, the authors of the new statement estimate that the prevalence of cognitive impairment in heart failure may be as high as 78%.

The new scientific statement outlines the effect of cognitive impairment on heart failure patients’ learning and memory, executive function, complex attention, perceptual-motor function, language and social cognition, detailing the effects on everyday tasks like daily weight checks, reading food labels and managing diuretics. In addition, it provides advice on screening tools for cognitive impairment and provides management strategies to address the challenges posed by these patients.

Understanding and addressing the complexity of patients with cognitive impairment in heart failure is essential to providing the highest-quality care, states Dr. Gorodeski – guidance this new scientific statement now provides.

“We as clinicians must invest the extra effort to identify cognitive impairment in our patients with heart failure, and then adjust management accordingly,” he says.