Hearts

[Gwen1149]

What is the difference between 'heart failure' and a 'heart attack'?

[nemi]

Heart failure - when the heart muscle tires out and can't pump blood effectively through to the other organs.  Heart attack - if severe, can injure enough heart muscle to damage the pump, which will leads to heart failure

[keen2learn]

Heart failure - as nemi describes - can be a chronic condition. You can have a relatively mild degree of heart failure for years, and it will make you a bit breathless and tired, but won't necessarily kill you. A heart attack is an acute event - again, as nemi accurately says - usually involving loss of circulation to a portion of the heart muscle. The amount of muscle that dies will determine whether the pump fails completely, and you die, or whether it carries on a bit less efficiently than before, but still keeping you alive.

[silly moo]

Heart attack covers a multitude of medical cardiac events.

Heart failure (cardiac failure) is something that most elderly people suffer from to some degree.

At the end of the day it is the failure of the heart to work that is the ultimate cause of death.

[EssJay1]

My dad died of heart failure.  Painless and quick.  I'm relieved he didn't suffer a heart attack, I wouldn't have wanted to know his last minutes were fullof pain.