Failing Heart, Kidney, Brain

What is Heart failure?

Heart failure is a chronic, progressive condition in which the heart muscle is unable to pump enough blood through to meet the body's needs for blood and oxygen. Basically, the heart can't keep up with its workload. Watch an animation of heart failure

Enlarging. The heart stretches to contract more strongly and keep up with the demand to pump more blood. Over time this causes the heart to become enlarged.
Developing more muscle mass. The increase in muscle mass occurs because the contracting cells of the heart get bigger. This lets the heart pump more strongly, at least initially.

Pumping faster. This helps to increase the heart's output. The body also tries to compensate in other ways:

The blood vessels narrow to keep blood pressure up, trying to make up for the heart's loss of power.

The body diverts blood away from less important tissues and organs (like the kidneys), the heart and brain.

What is kidney failure?

Your kidneys are a pair of organs located toward your lower back. One kidney is on each side of your spine. They filter your blood and remove toxins from your body. Your kidneys send toxins to your bladder. Your body later removes toxins during urination.

Kidney failure occurs when your kidneys lose the ability to filter waste from your blood sufficiently. Many factors can interfere with your kidney health and function, such as:

⇔   toxic exposure to environmental pollutants or certain medications ⇔   certain acute and chronic diseases ⇔   severe dehydration ⇔   kidney trauma

Your body becomes overloaded with toxins if your kidneys can’t do their regular job. This can lead to kidney failure and even be life-threatening if it’s left untreated.

Brain Damage

Brain damage, or brain injury, affects brain cells and is often the result of a head injury, accident or trauma.

Brain damage can affect a person's thinking, understanding, language skills and memory
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is caused by an external force, such as a blow to the head, that causes the brain to move inside the skull or damages the skull. This in turn damages the brain.
An Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) occurs at the cellular level. It is most often associated with pressure on the brain, for example from a tumour. Or it could result from neurological illness, as in the case of a stroke.

Most brain injuries cause focal, or localised, brain damage, such as the damage caused when a bullet enters the brain. In other words, the damage is confined to a small area. Closed head injuries frequently cause diffuse brain damage, which means damage to several areas of the brain. For example, major speech and language areas might both be involved.