If you’ve been diagnosed with heart failure, your doctor has likely ordered a test of your heart's ejection fraction (EF). The EF is a measure of how efficiently your heart is pumping blood out to the rest of the body. When measuring your EF, your healthcare provider takes measurements of how much blood is in your heart and what percentage of that blood is pumped out to the body.
A healthy heart pushes out between 50 and 70% of the blood in the heart out to the rest of the body with each pump. If your heart pumps 41 to 49%, you have a borderline ejection fraction. In cases where the heart pumps out 40% or less of the blood in the heart, symptoms become noticeable, and patients are diagnosed with a reduced ejection fraction.
A reduced EF makes it hard to do daily tasks and can be frustrating for patients. The good news for is that a reduced EF can be improved or managed.
The above video, from the American Heart Association, covers EF and why it is an essential measure of heart's health.
Sources: American Heart Association
