Today many more people are surviving heart attacks and other heart diseases enduring these heart conditions allows them many more years of quality life but can eventually lead to the development of heart failure in recent years more effective medications have been developed that improve the outlook of heart failure medications are the mainstay of therapy with congestive heart failure. Surviving with heart failure heart failure affects 26 million people worldwide half die within five years of diagnosis theres been a lack of progress in finding more effective medications advances in understanding mean new options for patients and caregivers jul 07 2015 retired registered nurse mary ann browne knows she has to live extremely carefully with just one third of her heart . Congestive heart failure is a chronic and progressive condition where the heart is weakened and unable to pump adequate oxygen and nutrient rich blood that your bodys cells need to function in the early stages of chf the heart muscle stretches and develops more muscle mass therefore contracting with more force to pump more blood. Congestive heart failure chf is a condition in which the muscles of your heart are no longer able to pump blood effectively its a long term condition that becomes progressively worse over time