Heart failure is a chronic disease in which the heart muscle is weakened and is unable to pump enough blood and oxygen to the rest of the body. The heart tries to compensate at first by enlarging, developing more muscle mass or pumping faster. But heart failure is progressive, and the heart and body eventually cannot keep up. People with heart failure will experience fatigue, breathing problems and other symptoms.

Although heart disease is the cause of one in four U.S. deaths, there is a gap in public knowledge about what heart failure is, its consequences, and how to prevent it. Patients, for example, sometimes mistakenly think they've had a heart attack when in fact they have heart failure.