Impact of Clinical Assessment on Sleep Disordered Breathing as a New Therapeutic Target of Heart Failure

Abstract

Physical examination in patients with heart failure is not only time and cost saving but also non-ivasive and safemethod to assess hemodynamics in patients with heart failure. Recently, Nohria’s classification has beenwidely accepted. Nohria’s classification consists of two parameters, which is congestion (wet or dry) and perfusion (warm or cold). Each patient is assigned to either of ‘wet and cold’, ‘wet andwarm’, ‘dry andwarm’ and ‘dry and cold’ based on patient’s physical findings. Signs of ‘wet’ include dyspnea, jugular vein distension and the third heart sound, and those of ‘cold’ include fatigue, weakness and cold extremities. Although Nohria’s classification is based upon Forrester’s classification which is originally applied for the assessment of patients with acute myocardial infarction, this classification is useful in various clinical settings.