Impedance Cardiographic Waveform Changes in Response to Treatment of Acute Heart Failure: A Case Study

While the specific-ity with which a definitive diagnosis of ADHF can be made is often less than optimal, the monitoring of the response of a patient to a prescribed treatment regimen is even more sub-jective. The uncertainty in the deter-mination of the response to treatment in ADHF has been primarily due to a lack of the tools necessary to effectively monitor this disease state. The complex pathophysiology of ADHF involves a systemic failure of the integrated com-ponents of the circulation; however, the circulatory system’s compensatory mechanisms seek to first stabilize critical hemodynamic parameters such as blood pressure, cardiac output, and arterial oxygen saturation and thereby limit the usefulness of these “vital signs” as indi-cators of an overall improvement in the clinical state during treatment.