Living with Advanced Heart Failure:

Coping with Symptoms and Uncertainty

Living with or caring for someone with Advanced Heart Failure? You aren’t alone. 10% of the nearly 750,000 Canadians living with heart failure have advanced heart failure.  Download our new guide, Living with Advanced Heart Failure: Coping with Symptoms and Uncertainty, for tips on symptom management, self-care, and planning for the future.
Download the Guide (web version)
Download the Guide (print version)
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Living with or caring for someone with Heart Failure is challenging

Knowing what to expect can make it easier. The new Living with Advanced Heart Failure guide was designed to help patients and caregivers:
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Manage common symptoms at home

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Plan for the future

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Develop coping and self-care practices

Living with Heart Failure: Palliative Care and Advance Care Planning

Making informed decisions about future care is essential for peace of mind. This video explains the role of palliative care, how it supports both patients and families, and why advance care planning is a key step in planning for your future.

Learn how to manage the symptoms of advanced heart failure

Advanced heart failure can cause many symptoms. Our guide will help you identify and manage symptoms such as:

• Breathlessness
• Fatigue
• Swelling
• Pain
• Nausea and changes in appetite, and
• Anxiety and depression

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Living with Heart Failure: Changing your Routines

Small adjustments to daily habits can have a big impact on your well-being. This video explores practical changes that can help you manage heart failure more effectively while maintaining independence and quality of life.

Watch the Living with Advanced Heart Failure Webinar

Join us virtually as we present our new guide Living with Advanced Heart Failure: Coping with Symptoms and Uncertainty. Together, we’ll discuss:

• Managing common symptoms
• Planning for the future
• Practical coping strategies
• Self-care and mental health support

There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to living with advanced heart failure

Living with heart failure comes with many questions about tomorrow. Our guide will help you prepare for the future.

Advanced Care Planning is a process of learning about health, learning about what to expect in the future, and then thinking about and sharing what is important. Advanced care planning helps you and your family or caregiver be prepared for the future by understanding:

• The role of a substitute decision maker
• Information about an illness and what to expect in the future
• What is important to a person.

This prepares a person and their substitute decision-maker for the future.

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Download the Guide (web version)
Download the Guide (print version)

Partners & Acknowledgements

This guide was created by a group of clinical advisors and patients, representing organizations that aim to improve heart failure care for all people in Canada.

Thank you to our development team:

Anne Simard • Staff Scientist, Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research
Leah Steinberg • Physician, Temmy Latner Centre for Palliative Care, Sinai Health
Natalie Lucas • Medical Illustrator and Designer, MScBMC at the University of Toronto
Samantha Engbers • Research Planning Associate, Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research

We also thank our patient, caregiver, clinician and communications reviewers who improved the drafts: Aaron Ablona, Augusta Lipscombe, Kim Locke, Kayla Wolofsky, Kirsten Wentlandt, and Devin Cleary.