Age Related Changes That Occur in the Cardiovascular System

“Wolf-Parkinson-White syndrome is associated with some forms of congenital heart disease, such as Ebstein's anomaly.” (Mayo Clinic Staff). The heart is made up of four chambers. The two upper chambers known as the atria, and the two lower chambers known as the ventricles. The rhythm of your heart is controlled by the sinus node. The sinus node is almost like a natural pacemaker which is located in the atrium. The sinus node gives off electrical impulses that start every heartbeat. “Electrical impulses travel across the atria causing the atria muscles to contract and pump blood in the ventricles.” (Mayo Clinic Staff). The electrical impulses eventually arrive at a cluster of cells known as the atrioventricular node or the AV node. The AV node slows down the signal before sending it to the ventricles. By this delay, it allows the ventricles to fill with blood causing the electrical impulses to reach the muscles of the ventricles so they can contract and pump blood to the lungs and the rest of the body. When a person has WPW syndrome an extra electrical pathway connects the atria and the ventricles. This means that an electrical signal can bypass the AV node. When the impulses use this alternative route through the heart, the ventricles are activated to early. Looped electrical impulses and disorganized electrical impulses are two major types of rhythm disturbances. A looped electrical impulse is when electrical

CHF can be caused by many different reasons. Sometimes CHF can be a heart defect or can be caused by unhealthy lifestyles. “CHF is an ongoing condition in which the heart muscle is weakened and can’t pump as well as it normally does” (Congestive Heart Failure). When the heart becomes too weak to continue to pump blood throughout the body, it is called Congestive Heart Failure. When CHF first

| |Coronary circulation |that pushes blood to the organs, |Abnormal heart rhythms or arrhythmias |

According to Center for Disease Control, one in nine people die from Congestive Heart Disease. Patients who have been diagnosed with Congestive Heart Disease are more likely to have one of these other disorders; Diabetes, Hypertension, or Coronary Artery Disease. Patient who have hypertension are at an increased risk for developing congestive heart failure during their lifetime. This is because it puts more workload on the heart than is needed. My patient has been diagnosed with Congestive Heart Disease with a secondary diagnosis of hypertension (Center for disease control and prevention, 2013).

In normal heart activity, the ventricles are depolarized by the depolarization wave spreading from the atria.

Common symptoms of Cardiomyopathy are dyspnea (breathlessness) and peripheral edema (swelling of the legs). It starts with the muscle becoming hard, thick, and engorged sometimes becoming replaced with scar tissue. As the muscle rigidifies, the heart weakens, is less bale to pump oxygen through the body, and starts to falter. Heart beat becomes irregular (called arrhythmias) and fluid can build up in lungs, ankles, feet, legs, or abdomen.

This site was quite interesting and shared information about our heart age. Our heart can actually be older than our own age. Depending on your lifestyle it can impact your heart’s condition for the long run. “ Heart age is the age of you heart and blood vessels as a result of your risk factors for heart attack or stroke”. Now do not be alarm you can improve your heart age at any time. By Simply exercising, quit smoking, eating healthy, and etc. One of the things that I found interesting is that even is you haven’t had a hart attack or stroke, most adults have a heart age older than their actual age. This is interesting because it can relate to “out of sight and out of mind”, just because you feel healthy you may not be healthy and with the

An dysrhythmia of the heart is an irregular heartbeat rhythm. Ventricular tachycardia is an dysrhythmia in which the lower chambers of the heart, the ventricles, beat unusually fast.

In humans, hypertensive cardiovascular complications result mainly from alterations in small and large arteries. Vascular alterations are commonly attributed to factors associated with hypertension, such as aging or atherosclerosis. One in three adult in the United State has high BP. An additional 28% are at high risk for developing hypertension (Townsend, Wilkinson, Schiffrin, Avoilo, Chirinos & Weber, 2015).

“An Electrocardiogram, or ECG or EKG, is a recording of the hearts electrical activity as a graph over a period of time, as detected by electrodes attached to the outer surface of the skin and recorded by a device external of the body”(Boundless). The graph of an ECG can identify various things initiated by the heart, such as its rate, rhythm, a decrease in blood flow, and a possible enlargement. For a healthy individual, a typical ECG shows the whole cardiac cycle or heart beat which includes a P wave (Atrial depolarization), a QRS complex (Ventricular depolarization), and a T wave (Ventricular repolarization). The ECG’s first spike or P wave is triggered by the Sinoatrial node (SA node), which is also known as the pacemaker and the electrical impulse from the atria to the ventricles is conducted by the atrioventricular node (AV node). During each heart beat the heart muscle depolarizes, this is detected on the skin where the ECG electrodes are placed by the machine and then translated into a linear representation (Boundless). The resting membrane potential of a heart cell is -60mv, when an influx of positive ions enter the cell (NA+ and CA++) depolarization takes place causing the heart to contract. This action takes place during the peak of the P wave (Atria systole). The QRS complex represent when the left and right ventricles contract and depolarize, also called ventricular systole. This action normally takes place at the highest amplitude in the complex,

The heart generates the electrical activity during the cardiac cycle then the electrical activity causes ventricular contractions and atrial. So, in turn, forces blood between the chambers of the heart and around the body. The closure and opening of the heart valves are associated with accelerations and decelerations of blood. That causes vibrations in the entire cardiac structure. These vibrations are heard using heart sounds recorders

The cardiac cycle is associated with the blood flow through the heart (Saladin, 2015). The heart rate is a term describing the regularity of the cardiac cycle (Marieb,2007). The heart rate is the amount of times it contracts or also known as beats in a unit of time, nearly always per minute. The normal pulse rate for healthy adults ranges from 60-100 bpm(beats per minute), approximately the adult heart rate regulates 75 bpm but this varies from person to person (Saladin, 2015). The heart rate generally slows down through childhood, as you develop (MacGill, 2015). Abnormal heart rates have medical names and harmless for some (MacGill, 2015). Tachycardia refers to the heart beating too fast at rest being over 100 beats per minute and Bradycardia refers to the heart beating too slow, usually below 60 beats per minute ( MacGill, 2015). The nervous system monitors the body and signals your heart to beat faster in response to increased activity. The normal heart rate undergoes healthy variation, going up in response to some conditions, including exercise, body temperature, body position, and emotion (MacGill, 2015). The blood is rushing around the heart to get rid of deoxygenated blood and carries back oxygenated blood from the lungs (Saladin, 2015) Sounds heard in the cardiovascular system result from the turbulent blood flow (Marieb, 2007). Two sounds can be heard during each cardiac cycle; these sounds are commonly known as "lub" and "dub". The sequence is

Cardiac Arrhythmias occurs when the electrical impulses of the heart don’t work properly, causing the heart to beat either too fast, too slow or irregular. There a two different types of cardiac arrhythmias; supraventricular and ventricular. The supraventricular arrhythmias occur when electrical abnormalities are generated in the sinoatrial node, atria, atrioventricular node, and the junctional tissue in the heart. The ventricular arrhythmias are generated in the ventricular conduction system and the ventricle. Due to the fact the ventricle pumps blood to the heart, if the blood isn’t pumped effectively to the vital organs they can’t function properly causing them to shut down and becoming damaged, causing ventricular arrhythmias to be more

Since the heart expands and contracts for every heartbeat, once someone ages, the elasticity of the heart weakens. This leads to weakening in the contractions and expansions of the heart while it pumps blood around the body. It has been studied

this is called a heart failure. When there is a buildup of plaque in the arteries sometimes