Instrumental activities of daily living: More than just piano-playing?

摘要

Many of the papers in this issue of the European Journal of Heart Failure will open with variants of the phrases 'heart failure is a disease of the elderly'; 'heart failure is becoming increasingly common/is an epidemic'; and 'the prognosis of heart failure is poor'. We all have in mind the notion that heart failure affects approx 1-2% of the adult population and that its incidence and prevalence increase greatly with increasing age.