Written by Julia Ann Purcell, RN, MN, FAAN and Barbara J. Fletcher, RN, MN, FAAN Learning that you have heart failure can be scary. Patients may lose heart over their condition and find it hard to listen carefully and remember all that you've taught them.

Send your patients home with A Stronger Pump: a guide for patients with all types of Heart Failure to read and guide them. This easy-to-read book discusses what heart failure is.  It covers tests, treatments and surgeries.  But most of all, it helps your patients take to heart the things they need to do to live a better life, like:

• taking medicines exactly as prescribed
• eating the right foods and avoiding the wrong ones
• limiting salt and fluids
• weighing daily and watching for fluid build-up
• shedding extra pounds and other unnecessary demands on the heart
• getting good rest and enough exercise
• lots of other tips for living life to the fullest

Reviewers:

• Emory Hospitals, Center For Heart Failure Therapy:
  • Andrea Hitchcock, RN, BSN
  • Rita Mehlan, RN, MSN, NP
• Emory Hospitals, Ventricular Assist Device Coordinators:
  • Kristen Wittersheim, RN, MSN, ACNP-BC
  • Ann Pekarek, RN, MSN, APRN-BC
• St. Joseph's Hospital, Atlanta, GA
  • Kathleen Halvey, RN, MN, ANP-BC