With the aging of the population and the improvement of living standards, cardiovascular diseases have seriously endangered human life and health. And heart failure, as a serious stage in the development of various heart diseases, has also received widespread attention. Many family members are unable to accurately determine whether a patient’s dyspnea is acute heart failure or bronchial asthma at the onset of the disease. Because the two manifestations are similar, many are confused. Let’s take a look at them together. The early signs of reduced left heart function are fatigue, significantly reduced exercise tolerance, increased heart rate of 15-20 beats/min, followed by exertional dyspnea, nocturnal paroxysmal dyspnea, high sleep, etc.; elderly patients with left heart failure may initially have only frequent dry cough or chest tightness and shortness of breath, especially during exercise and exertion and other symptoms of the whistling tract. Some patients may be suddenly awakened at night with shortness of breath and forced to sit up before their symptoms gradually resolve. Symptoms of asthma The common symptoms of asthma are episodes of wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, or coughing. Many patients can smell wheezing sounds themselves during an asthma attack. Symptoms are usually episodic and most patients resolve on their own or with treatment. Differentiation of heart failure and asthma symptoms Left heart failure and bronchial asthma can both present with nocturnal dyspnea, both can be accompanied by coughing and coughing up white foamy sputum, and both can present with dry and wet rales in the lungs, so they can be easily confused. In fact, if carefully identified, there is a difference between the two. The symptoms of cough and asthma caused by heart failure are closely related to the patient’s position. The symptoms are aggravated when the patient is in a recumbent position and reduced when the patient is in a sitting (standing) position, and the symptoms often occur at night, and the sputum is white plasma foamy. In contrast, cough and asthma symptoms caused by diseases such as chronic bronchitis or asthma are not related to changes in body position. The patient’s symptoms are usually relieved after coughing up white mucous sputum. The clinical manifestations of elderly patients with heart failure are complex, diverse and atypical, and are easily confused with symptoms of other diseases, so they are often misdiagnosed as diseases of other systems. Once there is persistent breath-holding, coughing and breathlessness, it may not necessarily be asthma, but may be a symptom of heart failure, especially in patients with clear heart disease, who must be alert to such conditions.