Elderly Heart Failure Patients Struggle with Self-Care

Patients with heart failure (HF) commonly have functional disability, but few studies have compared people's self-perception of their functioning with their actual abilities. The issue is important because we often ask people what they can do, but we less often test them. Investigators from Spain evaluated a prospective cohort of 415 patients hospitalized with HF who were 70 years and older (mean age, 80; 50% women).

Patients were tested on their abilities to perform six tasks essential for HF self-care, such as standing on a scale without help, reading and writing their own weight, and identifying prescribed diuretic pills from drug boxes. Only two thirds could use a scale, and fewer than half could record the weight from a scale. About two…