Heart Failure Essay

As the blood quickly flows in, it will hit the hardened walls, creating an extra sound. In congestive heart failure, preload and contractility are major factors in the improper functioning of the heart as a pump.

Diastolic dysfunction is a problem with the ventricle’s ability to relax and fill. Mixed systolic and diastolic dysfunction is a combination of the two defects (Williams and Hopper).

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).

Heart failure is a condition in which the heart muscle becomes too weak to maintain an adequate cardiac output to meet the body’s

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

Fewer muscles in the heart walls lead to weaker contractions, which results in an impaired ability to pump blood to the rest of the body; this tends to lead to heart failure (3). It is a type of systolic failure since DCM occurs during systole, the process in which the heart contracts to pump blood to the rest of the body.

In case 2, patient has left ventricle hypertrophy, this can lead the diastolic heart failure. Diastolic dysfunction regarded as the stiffness of cardiac muscle, it reduces the filling of blood of ventricle during the resting period between each beat and results in inadequate stroke volume. For the systolic heart failure, it deemed as the ventricle loses the strength to contract, the heart cannot pump enough blood to the body. Therefore, left ventricle hypertrophy can lead the heart failure due to the inefficient blood flow. One of the symptoms of congestive heart failure is water retention, the patients will get swelling in lower limbs, for example, legs and ankles.

Heart failure-is the main focus of this project and is when the pumping action of the heart cannot supply enough blood to the rest of the body as a result of damaged cardiac tissue in the heart specifically.

The major causes of diastolic heart failure are hypertension-induced myocardial hypertrophy and myocardial ischemia-induced ventricular transformation (coronary artery disease). Hypertrophy and ischemia cause a decreased ability of the myocytes to actively pump calcium from the cytosol, resulting in impaired relaxation. Some of the other causes are aortic valvular disease and cardiomyopathies. Diabetes can also lead to diastolic heart failure (Huether and McCune 2012). Other risk factors for this disease are chronic kidney disease, obstructive sleep apnea, and older age. There are two types of the heart failure: systolic heart failure and diastolic heart failure. In systolic heart failure, the left ventricle has 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 increased chamber rigidity, which then causes inadequate filling of blood and

In year 2000 and 2010, an estimated 1 million hospitalizations for Congestive Heart Failure (CHF), of which most of these hospitalizations were for those aged 65 and over, the share of CHF hospitalizations for those under age 65 increased from 23% to 29% over this time period (Hall, Levant, & DeFrances, 2012). According to Held (2009), acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF) ensues when cardiac output fails to meet the demand of the body’s metabolic needs. The fluid volume overload makes the unstable condition necessitates instant treatment for the reason that it impairs perfusion to systemic organs, endangering their function.

From the graph 1, we can see that a decrease in pump rate results in an increase in stroke volume to maintain cardiac output. The pump rate decreases because the heart didn’t have to pump as much as before to maintain the cardiac output. Venous return directly affects the preload as an increase of the stroke volume causes an increase of the end-diastolic volume (EDV). The stroke volume changes following the changes of ESV to accommodate changes in preload. From the graph 2, we can see that the flow stays constant because cardiac output is equivalent to blood flow. The heart alters stroke volume by altering the contractility. When the stroke volume increases, the force of contraction of the heart increases, which results in an increase of EDV.

Stroke volume is the amount of blood pumped out of the heart and into the body from the left ventricle during each contraction and is measured in millilitres per beat. When the heart is resting stroke volume is at a normal pace. When the heart rate starts to increase stroke volume has to become faster and pump more blood out of the heart

Heart failure may convey that the heart isn’t working anymore, but what it really means is that the heart isn’t pumping as well as it should be (REF). Heart failure is a chronic, progressive condition in which the heart muscle is unable to pump enough blood through to meet the body’s needs for blood and oxygen (REF). At first, the heart tries to make up for this by enlarging, developing more muscle mass, and pumping faster. As this happens, the blood vessels narrow to keep blood pressure up and the body diverts blood away from less important tissues and organs to maintain flow to the heart and brain (REF). Eventually, the body and heart cannot keep up and the patient begins to feel fatigue, breathing problems, weight gain with swelling in the feet, legs, ankles or stomach, and other symptoms that eventually leads to a hospital visit. The body’s coping mechanisms give us better understanding on why many are unaware of their condition until years after the heart declines (REF).

After a period of time, the heart muscles of the left ventricle begin to weaken. The weakening of the left ventricle will lead to decreased empting of the heart (systolic heart failure) which results in decreased cardiac output again. Since the left ventricle does not empty completely, blood begins to back up into the left atrium and then to the pulmonary circulation thus resulting in pulmonary congestion and dyspnea (Story 2012, 104). If left untreated, the blood will back up and affect the right side of the heart causing biventricular heart failure (both right and left heart failure). In right sided heart failure, the right ventricle weakens and cannot empty completely. This incomplete emptying causes blood to back up into the systemic circulation causing systemic edema (Lewis et al. 2014, 771).

physical release of all the energy built up in the body does not actually take