**9. Intensive care unit management**

When a person is admitted with a diagnosis of cardiomyopathy, the main aims of therapy whether in the intensive care or coronary care unit are, to reduce the workload of the heart and to improve the pumping ability of the heart. This can be achieved with the help of drugs such as inotropes, diuretics, ACE inhibitors, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, and so on, which aids in improving the pumping action of the heart muscle and treatment to ensure the proper volume of blood in the body.

Treatment of the patients in the intensive care unit depends not only on the type and the severity of cardiomyopathy but also condition of patient. Treatment may include conservative management with drugs, implantation of pacemakers, defibrillators for those prone to fatal heart rhythms, ventricular assist devices or extracorporeal membrane oxygenators for severe heart failure, or ablation for recurring dysrhythmias that cannot be managed by drugs or cardioversion. The goal of management in the intensive care unit is often symptomatic, and some patients may eventually require a heart transplant.
