Congestive Heart Failure Research Paper

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

Diastolic heart failure or diastolic dysfunction is when the left ventricle does not relax normally. This pushes the heart to pump too quickly, permitting the heart from filling the chamber with enough blood during the resting period betweens beats (Types of Heart Failure). Right-sided heart failure is usually a consequence of left-sided heart failure. When the heart loses its main source of pumping power, the right side of the heart is affected by blood being pushed into the veins of the body causing swelling. These heart conditions can be ongoing or they can start abruptly which can have a huge impact on the body (Types of Heart Failure).

Congestive heart hailure, also known as CHF or heart failure, affects the lives of 5 million Americans each year with 550,000 new cases diagnosed yearly. (Emory healthcare, 2013) CHF is a medical condition in which the heart has become weak and cannot pump enough blood to meet the need for oxygen rich blood required by the vital organs of the body, less blood is pumped out of the heart to the organs and tissues in the body and pressure in the heart increases, it does not mean the heart has stopped working. (Murphy, 2013) Once the heart has become weakened by conditions such as hypertension, abnormal heart

Congestive Heart Failure is when the heart's pumping power is weaker than normal. It does not mean the heart has stopped working. The blood moves through the heart and body at a slower rate, and pressure in the heart increases. This means; the heart cannot pump enough oxygen and nutrients to meet the body's needs. The chambers of the heart respond by stretching to hold more blood to pump through the body or by becoming more stiff and thickened. This only keeps the blood moving for a short while. The heart muscle walls weaken and are unable to pump as strongly. This makes the kidneys respond by causing the body to retain fluid and sodium. When the body builds up with fluids, it becomes congested. Many conditions can cause heart

In this journal article, the author entails the impact of congestive heart failure (CHF) on individuals all around the world, specifically focusing on how can nurses help their patients suffering with CHF and keep it under control. The Purpose of this journal article is to provide nurses with more knowledge related to CHF discussing the cause of CHF, sign and symptoms, lifestyle interventions, such as diet and exercise, in comparison to pharmacological management to prevent or delay the progression of the disease. William & Wilkins (2012) specially highlights the difference between right and left sided CHF. This journal article is conducted to quantify the nurses with tools to help their patients that suffer with congestive heart failure (CHF).

The Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation defines heart failure (HF) as “a common condition that develops after the heart becomes damaged or weakened by diseases of the heart including heart attacks and other medical conditions. (Heart Failure, 2013)” HF is a chronic medical condition causing the body’s heart to weaken and become unable to pump and supply enough blood and nutrients to the meet the body’s needs. There are four different types of HF: left-side, right-side, systolic and diastolic heart failure (Heart Failure, 2015). Left-side heart failure causes shortness of breath due to fluid backing up in the lungs. Right-side heart failure causes fluid retention in abdomen, legs and feet causing swelling. Systolic heart failure is when the left ventricle can’t contract fast enough, indicating a pumping issue and diastolic heart failure is when the left ventricle can’t relax enough to fill properly, indicating a filling problem (Heart Failure, 2015). These abnormalities in heart function can result a homeostatic imbalance in the kidneys responding by causing the body to retain fluid and salt. The term congestive heart failure (CHF) is used when the heart failure has worsened causing a backup of fluid and congesting extremities and other organs (Heart Failure, 2015). Often, you can control heart failure by taking medicine, changing your lifestyle, and treating the condition that caused it but there is no cure at this time.

To understand the signs and symptoms of left-sided versus right-sided heart failure, remember that left-sided signs and symptoms are found in the lungs. Left begins with L, as does lung. Any signs and symptoms not related to the lungs are caused by right-sided failure (Williams and Hopper). Some signs and symptoms of heart failure are shortness of breath (dyspnea), fatigue, chronic cough or wheezing, rapid or irregular heartbeat, lack of appetite or nausea, mental confusion or impaired thinking, fluid buildup and swelling, and rapid weight gain, and the need to urinate more at night. In order to determine heart failure the physician will do a diagnostic test which includes a chest x-ray, echocardiogram, ejection fraction (EF), and electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG).

Congestive heart failure occurs when your ventricles can not pump enough blood to the body.

A person with left sided heart failure my experience SOB and increased episodes of coughing caused by fluid buildup in the lungs. Pulmonary edema often causes a patient to cough up blood-tinged phlegm. (Cadwallader p. 1143). The PMI is displaced toward the left anterior axillary line, and there is a presence of S3 caused by ventricular filling, and/or S4 resulting from atrial contraction against a noncompliant ventricle. (Schilling-McCann p. 176). The person may have cool, pale skin resulting from peripheral vasoconstriction. Restlessness and confusion is normally due to decreased cardiac output.

Left ventricle failure (LVF) is developed by patients with CHF in which the heart is unable to pump blood effectively and so there is a decreased cardiac output. Out of the four chambers that make up the heart the left ventricle is the strongest and thickest one, as it is the main pumping chamber that supplies the

There are many causes of heart failure. Among them is a reduction in the contractile ability of the heart due to mechanical problems or any problem that limits the filling capacity of the heart chambers with blood due to any form of cardiomyopathy. Whatever the cause, the patient’s tissues are compromised because they cannot receive an adequate amount of oxygen necessary to perform optimally (Bui, Horwich, & Fonarow, 2010).

Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a weakness of the heart that has an insufficient circulation of blood throughout the body, which leads to the build-up of fluid in the lungs and edema in the surrounding tissues of the body. “As the intravascular pressure increases along with the amount of extravascular liquid, the lungs become less compliant and less permeable to oxygen, leading to respiratory discomfort (dyspnea), hypoxemia and tachypnea” (Garcia and Wright, 2010). As the condition deteriorates, the capacity of the interstitial space is exceeded, the fluid floods the alveoli and airways resulting in full blown CPE, an acute respiratory distress and a major medical emergency in heart failure patients” (Guyton 1991). There are two types of

There are two types of heart failure: systolic heart failure and diastolic heart failure. In systolic heart failure, left ventricle have difficulty contracting and ejecting blood into the circulation, which causes reduced left ventricular fraction. On the other hand, diastolic heart failure has a slow and delayed relaxation and chamber rigidity increase, which then causes inadequate filling of blood and slows down the ability to eject blood efficiently. Calcium is not

Heart failure is defined as “ the pathophysiologic condition in which the heart is unable to generate an adequate cardiac output such that there is inadequate perfusion of tissues or increased diastolic filling pressure of the left ventricle, or both, so that pulmonary capillary pressures are increased.” Congestive Heart Failure (left heart failure) is categorized as “heart failure with reduced ejection fraction or heart failure with preserved ejection fraction” (McCance & Huethe, 2014, p. 1175). According the American Heart Association, this patient has Stage C Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction (HFrEF) since his left ventricular ejection fraction is 30% (Yancy et al., 2013, p.

Exertional dyspnoea and fatigue are the most common symptoms. These are caused by a left-to-right shunt, when the connection between the two atria allows blood to pass from the left side of the heart to the right. This occurs because the pressure in the left side of the heart is naturally higher than the right. The extra blood from the left atrium overloads the right atrium and the right ventricle, causing right heart dilation, and subsequent heart failure (5). If left untreated, patients can develop reversal of the ASD, resulting in a right to left shunt; this is known as Eisenmenger’s syndrome. Other complications include atrial tachyarrhythmias or stroke (21, 22).