[Heart failure in the elderly (from diagnosis to therapy)]

After some considerations about the importance of heart failure on the elderly, the medical literature about epidemiologic and necropsy data on etiologic forms of heart failure, is reviewed. The importance of the associated pathologies to heart failure on the elderly is evaluated in what the diagnosis and treatment of this syndrome is concerned. We characterize the physiopathologic types of heart failure on the elderly. We refer how important is to recognize the treatable forms of heart failure, mainly the aortic valve stenosis.