Introduction

In 1994, at age 36, I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. I went online in 1996 to find out more about my illness, but there were no web sites about it - so I created one. CHFpatients.com Inc. developed from Jon's Place, which developed from that original effort, called The Beat Goes On. Since early 1997, I have been helping people cope with heart failure.

Mission Statement

We provide information and interactive areas online that help you improve and lengthen your life if you have congestive heart failure, called CHF.

In detail, CHFpatients.com, Inc. was formed to do the research necessary to accomplish all the goals stated below; to network with health care professionals and appropriate industry members to accomplish these goals; to communicate with - and to - heart failure patients and their caregivers and loved ones to accomplish these goals.

Our goals are accomplished through creating, maintaining, and promoting documents on the world wide web, including but not limited to the following formats: Text, HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript, Java, Flash, Shockwave, CGI, Perl, RTF, PDF, DOC, and graphics formats of all kinds; by interactive communication including but not limited to e-mail, message boards, chat rooms, scripts, telephone, and postal mail.

Our goals:

• To educate heart failure patients and their loved ones and caregivers about cardiomyopathy and heart failure using the Internet; as well as about complications and other illnesses or conditions that may arise because of heart failure.
• To educate heart failure patients about treatments for heart failure, including but not limited to devices, drugs, alternative therapies and supplements, surgeries, life style changes, or other treatments that may extend life or improve or maintain quality of life; and to do so in plain language that the average lay person can understand.
• To give heart failure patients an online community where they can realize they are not alone dealing with this life changing illness.
• To facilitate communication between people with heart failure for purposes of, but not limited to:
  1. providing emotional, mental, psychological, and social support;
  2. comparing and discussing treatments and their effectiveness and availability;
  3. comparing and discussing potential treatment side effects and how to cope with or remove unwanted side effects safely and effectively in cooperation with their medical caregivers;
  4. comparing and discussing levels, modes, and locations of care;
  5. sharing experiences to alleviate stress;
  6. and for any other purpose that may help a person cope with the intrusion of this life altering illness into their life or that of their loved one(s).
• To help heart failure patients and their caregivers and loved ones gain some control over their illness, thus alleviating stress and helping them become proactive, preventing problems before they occur and so removing some of the illness' burdens from their lives, and secondarily from society. The burdens are many:
  1. preventing the addition of more drugs to their therapy or preventing hospitalizations through beneficial life style changes may alleviate financial stress;
  2. improving treatment results by enabling intelligent questioning of health care providers, being aware of potential drug-drug interactions or side effects, and adopting proper diet and exercise programs to prevent periods of acute illness requiring extensive caregiving and loss of social interaction, whether on the job, in the family, or in the community;
  3. increasing knowledge about their illness and helping them become a partner in, rather than a passive recipient of, medical care may greatly improve their mental and psychological health, as well as their quality of day to day life.

All information on this site is opinion only. All concepts, explanations, trials, and studies have been re-written in plain English and may contain errors. I am not a doctor. Use the reference information at the end of each article to search MedLine for more complete and accurate information. All original copyrights apply. No information on this page should be used by any person to affect their medical, legal, educational, social, or psychological treatment in any way. I am not a doctor. This web site and all its pages, graphics, and content copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Jon C.