In the practice of medicine, physicians encounter many great imposters - in the form of diseases that exhibit symptoms very similar to other conditions. Symptoms that appear to be asthma can actually be the work of an imposter. When asthma symptoms develop in later years it is important to make certain that an accurate diagnosis has been astablished.
Cardiac asthma is the term used to describe asthma-like symptoms due to heart failure.
This condition tends to occur in elderly patients. Often the patients have no history of asthma and these symptoms are a completely new problem. Patients with cardiac asthma do wheeze, but the wheezing occurs as a result of a build-up of fluid in the lungs due to the failure of the heart to pump blood effectively. In addition to a chest examination, there are several clues that doctors look for if they suspect that a patient is in heart failure, such as enlargement of the heart and liver, distension of the veins of the neck, and swelling of the ankles. In some patients, heart failure is diagnosed when a chest x-ray reveals that the heart is enlarged and there is fluid in the lungs.