air travel and congestive heart failure

[Gillie22]

My 89 year old mother is still 'fit', active, cleans her house, gardens, walks etc, but has congestive heart failure with an ejection fraction of 13% to 17%.  She wants to fly from UK to Switzerland (one and a half hours) to visit her daughter.  She has often flown in the past and is very comfortable making the journey, but I wonder if it poses an additional thread to her already fragile health. Her heart attack was six years ago and she was not treated until about 5 or 6 hours after onset of symptoms, so she clearly suffered damage, and has had bouts of atrial fibrilation since.  What do you advise?  I would be very grateful for any information you can give me..

[Gillie22]

Thank you so mcu for this information.  I know of a number of contacts who have travelled long distance to New Zealand etc. and have been severly negatively affected by this travel.  It is good to know that the short flight should be Ok for her.  Kind Regards, Gillie22

[Dr J Singh]

Hi,
Since she doesn’t appear to have decompensated CHF, she can travel but seeing her Ejection fraction, she needs to take certain precautions before the air travel.
1. Get a latest ECG and get it examined to rule out any possible new arrhythmias.
2. Ensure she takes all her medications along in the hand baggage and not put it in the check-in baggage.
3. She should ask for a wheel chair and avoid exertion by walking too much at the airports.
4. She needs to inform the airline about her medical condition so that she’s taken good care of, God forbid, if there’s an emergency and keep the oxygen cylinder close to her, in case, she requires during the flight.
I sincerely hope that helps. Please do keep me posted. Kind regards.