Blood Flow Dilated Cardiomyopathy Case Study

The prevalence of congestive heart failure is on the increase both in the United States and all over the world, and it is the leading cause of hospitalization in the elderly population. Congestive heart failure is a progressive disease generally seen in the elderly, which if not properly managed, can lead to repeated hospital admissions or death. Heart failure means that the heart muscle is weakened. A weakened heart muscle may not be strong enough to pump an adequate amount of blood out of its chambers. To compensate for its diminished pumping capacity, the heart may enlarge. Commonly, the heart's pumping inefficiency causes a buildup of blood in the

In Falcon’s report “Heart Disease” he anatomically describes the heart as “a fist sized organ located in the lower left quarter of the chest…[consisting] of four chambers: the right and left atria on top and the right and left ventricles at the bottom” (Falcon). While the heart is one of the smaller organs in the body, it has an enormous and important job to do; deliver nutrient carrying blood to the tissues in the human body. In people with heart disease, the heart is impeded and cannot efficiently deliver nutrients and oxygen to structures such as our muscles or our brain. This is one of the reasons that heart disease is so deadly; when our body structures are deprived of necessary nutrients, they begin to breakdown. The term “heart disease” encompasses a wide variety of

Apical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a disease that mainly affects the apex of the heart and does not cause any obstruction. [1] These abnormalities in the heart muscle can cause a wide variety of symptoms. As the heart becomes stiff it increases the pressure in the left ventricle which can push blood back into the lungs, causing shortness of breath in exercise. Chest pain can occur as there is not enough oxygen available to the cardiac muscle due to insufficient blood supply. Palpitations and lightheadedness, along with other conditions can occur as a result of HCM. In addition to these discomforting symptoms, the patient may develop an arrhythmias that often goes unnoticed. An arrhythmia takes place as the electrical conduction of the heart is disturbed by the abnormal scattering of myocytes. The two most common arrhythmias are atrial fibrillation causing palpitations, and ventricular tachycardia that can be life threatening causing sudden death. Both conditions can be controlled with medication. [4]

Systolic heart failure is characterized by enlarged ventricles that are unable to fully contract to pump enough blood into circulation to adequately perfuse tissues. The enlargement in ventricles is due to an increased end-systolic volume. If the heart is not able to sufficiently pump the expected volume of blood with each contraction, which in a normal healthy heart is 50-60%, there will be a residual volume left in the heart after every pump (Heart Healthy Women, 2012). With the next period of filling, the heart will receive the same amount of blood volume from the atria combined with that residual volume from the previous contraction. This causes the ventricles to have to dilate to accommodate this increase in volume. The dilation causes the walls of the ventricles to stretch and become thin and weak. Also the myocardium, the muscle layer of the heart, will stretch and not be able to adequately make a full and forceful enough contraction to push blood from the ventricles (Lehne, 2010).

When CHF starts to become worse, fluid can start to fill up in a person’s lungs and sometimes even throughout a person’s body. The fluid could cause a person to feel out of breath even while resting, swelling in the legs, ankles, or feet, weight gain, feeling bloated, and coughing, wheezing, and having to use the bathroom more at night. There is also a possibility that CHF can happen all of a sudden. When it starts to happen, it is called sudden heart failure. It will eventually cause congestion from fluid building up in the lungs. Symptoms can start to happen by having severe shortness of breath, an irregular or maybe even a fast heart beat and it may even cause coughing up foamy, pink mucus (Heart-Failure

The circulatory system which is present in the chest consists of heart and blood vessels such as arteries, veins and capillaries (Australian Indigenous Healthinfonet, 2016). The heart being the centre controls the blood circulation throughout the body receives deoxygenated blood through veins which is then converted into or replaced by the oxygenated blood from the lungs and then pumped out by the heart to different organs of the body through arteries. (Australian Indigenous Healthinfonet, 2016). The diseases that affects the normal function and structure of the circulatory system are called cardiovascular diseases (Australian Indigenous Healthinfonet, 2016). It commonly includes diseases such as stroke, coronary or ischaemic heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, heart failure, cardiomyopathy etc. that may be life-threatening ("Department of Health | Cardiovascular disease", 2016).

|Required: |Heart |The heart and circulatory system | Coronary artery disease (narrowing of the |

The right side of heart will increase in size as the muscle builds up and the heart rate will increase due to compensation for the left ventricle. With auscultation, the lungs will sound crackly from the liquid in the alveoli and interstitial space and when assessing respiration rate it is likely to be above thirty breaths per minute (Lewis et al., 2014). The patient may report that they are experiencing dyspnea, nocturia, fatigue, and a productive coughing. They may appear anxious and their skin may look pale (Lewis et al., 2014).

The patient may experience dyspnea, caused by pulmonary congestion. They may report orthopnea as blood is redistributed from the legs to the central circulation when the patient lies down a night, paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea due to reabsorption of interstitial fluid when lying down, and reduced sympathetic stimulation while sleeping. Pulmonary congestion may also cause a non-productive cough. Later clinical manifestations of left sided heart failure include crackles due to pulmonary congestion and hemoptysis resulting from bleeding veins in the bronchial system caused by venous distention. On physical exam the patient may have cool, pale skin resulting from peripheral vasoconstriction, and may be restless and confused due to reduced cardiac

Congestive Heart failure: Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) is a cardiac disease associated with the decreasing capacity of the cardiac output. It has been shown that the CHF is the main cause of cardiac death around the world (Lucena, Barros, & Ohnishi, 2016). Congestive heart failure is the inability of the left side of the heart to pump an adequate amount of blood due to certain conditions. Because of these conditions, the heart become weak and unable to pump all of the blood forward and some of

Stem cells have made significant promise to help people understand and treat a broad range of injuries, diseases, and other health-related issues. This type of treatment has saved the lives of many people with leukemia and can also be used for tissue grafts to treat conditions with the skin, bone and surface of the eye ("Nine Things to Know about Stem Cell Treatments"). Dilated cardiomyopathy (DMC) is a disease characterized by expansion of the left ventricular chamber and it is usually associated with systolic dysfunction. The presentations of the condition include heart failure, myocardial infarction, and arrhythmia and as a refractory life-threatening condition which can cause heart failure, transplantation remains the ultimate therapy for

Dobermans are particularly at risk of this. The signs are similar to that of congestive heart failure

Due to them being similar to symptoms that women experience in the last trimester of pregnancy. The women may experience orthopnea, dyspnea, pitting edema (swelling), cough, frequent urination, and extra weight gain at the last month of pregnancy. Some patients have reported that they have palpitations. Which is where the heart races, skips beats, and has long pauses between beats. PPCM patients have described the short of breath of inability to take a deep breath or get enough air. The cough is caused by pulmonary edema. That is caused by the heart failure. If any women experience any of these symptoms. Let you doctor know as soon as possible. The earlier the heart failure is caught the less damage there is to your

In fact, TTC is not even in the top three most common types of cardiomyopathy. The most common type is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (or HCM). People with HCM have a heart muscle that is excessively thick and prone to scarring. This process makes the muscle stiff, which causes blood-pumping difficulties. The second most common subgroup is dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). This occurs when the pumping chambers of the heart enlarge, which makes the muscle thin and weak. Many people with DCM have breathing problems due to the fluid build-up in their lungs. The third most common type of cardiomyopathy is arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), where heart muscle cells are replaced by scar tissue and fat cells. All three of these instances are

Dr. Volk had several different heart issues that resulted in his eventual heart transplant. One of the issues was called dilated cardiomyopathy, or the enlargement of chambers of the heart that typically starts with the enlargement of the left ventricle (American Heart Association, 2016). When a heart is enlarged too much the cardiac muscles can’t work as efficiently resulting in weaker contractions. Since his left ventricle was enlarged he was unable to pump a sufficient amount of blood to his body (American Heart Association, 2016). This resulted in Dr. Volk’s body not getting sufficient oxygen or nutrients. When blood enters a normal sized heart the cardiac muscles are stretched to an ideal length based on the length-tension relationship