what do you want to know? The standard of care is this:
Coreg is the Beta Blocker of choice, as it has reparative effects on the heart and can raise the EF (ejection fraction), which is how much blood your heart can pump from the left ventricle (LV) with each contraction. For "normal" people, EF is about 65%; when I was diagnosed, mine was 10-15%, but it has climbed to 40%.
She will also need an ACE inhibitor, which is a vaso-dilator. I don't know more about it, unfortunately, because I just take the drug, I'm not an expert in this one.
A diuretic like Lasix (most of have the generic, furosemide), probably about 40 mg./day. This may go up or down depending upon how she responds.
Aspirin. And now doctors are prescribing statins, but I haven't had to start that yet. I have my appointment with my doc tomorrow, though, so that will probably change. The standard of care has actually changed in the last several months as a result of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
She must also STRICTLY adhere to a diet of ONLY 2000 mg of sodium a day (both harder and easier than it sounds) and 2 litres of fluid/day (probably). She should also have a half hour of cardiovascular exercise every day; walking is sufficient.
One of the important determinants in her prognosis is how she acquired CHF. If she got it from a viral source, as I did, or post-partum (not likely for a grandmother), she has a very good prognosis. No matter what, CHF patients have a much better prognosis than ever before because of the advancement in drugs. 1/3 of patients get better; 1/3 remain stable; 1/3 get worse. Life expectancy, however, is very good as it is considered a manageable chronic illness like diabetes.
Tips: make sure she sees a CHF specialist! Internists are not good enough for this because it is highly specialized and "regular" cardiologists are OK, but it is preferable that the doc see at least HALF his or her patients with CHF/cardiomyopathy. A good place to look is
http://www.chfpatients.com Have your grandmother read the manual--or you read it--and then start looking for info there. It has almost everything you need to know. There is a section for caregivers (with questions and support) and for patients, but the two sections bleed together. The owner of the board has CHF and he, like me, was "supposed" to have a transplant when he was diagnosed; he now has a normal EF, but he lives with some limitations. It is written in lay-speak, so it is accessible to everyone. I post questions there sometimes and I learn a lot.
Let me give a couple other links.
http://www.acc.org/clinical/guidelines/failure/hf_index.htm American College of Cardiology Guidelines for the management of CHF
http://www.heartcenteronline.com/myheartdr/community/showthread.cfm?doWhat=seeDiscussion&discussionTopic_id=84Heart Center Online message board for CHF patients and loved ones.
http://chfplace.com/Lots of good info. Follow the links.
But most of all, go to the chfpatients.com site and explore. Learn.