Congenital heart disease

Question 1

What is rheumatic heart disease?

Answer 1

Rheumatic heart disease is chronic damage to the valves in the heart caused by repeated cases of acute rheumatic fever

Question 2

What is valvular heart disease?

Answer 2

• Valvular heart diseaseis characterized by damage to or a defect in one of the fourheartvalves

The two below can happen simultaneously:
a. Stenosis: Valves become stiff or the leaflets fuse, meaning there isn’t as much space for blood to flow through and thus, the heart needs to work harder

b. Regurgitation: Valves don’t close tightly, causing blood to flow backwards, making your heart work harder to keep the blood pumping forwards

Question 3

What are consequences of rheumatic heart disease?

Answer 3

• Heart works harder
• Back flow of blood
• Arrythmia
• Heart murmur
• Cardiac hypertrophy/ heart failure
• Infective endocarditis

Question 4

Describe mitral valve stenosis and regurgitation

Answer 4

• Stenosis: valve doesn’t open fully thus blood can’t flow into the left ventricle. May have backflow of blood into the pulmonary vein = pulmonary oedema
• Regurgitation: valve may also leak because it cannot flow, causing blood to flow backwards when the left ventricle contracts

Question 5

What is infective endocarditis?

What are signs and symptoms?

Answer 5

• Infection of the heart tissue, mainly in the endocardium
• Staphylococcus aureus (skin route) and Streptococci (oral route) are the most common pathogen
• Fever
• Fatigue
• New intra-cardiac murmur
• Heart failure
• Roths spots, petechiae, glomerulonephritis
• Polyarthritis

Question 6

What is arrhythmia?

Answer 6

Are a group of conditions where the heartbeat is irregular, too slow, or too fast

Question 7

What are causes of arrhythmia?

Answer 7

Causes
• Ischaemic heart disease
• Myocardial infarction 
• Valvular disease
• Cardiac hypertrophy 
• Following heart surgery 
• Electrolyte imbalance
• Medication

Question 8

What are the types of arrhythmia?

Answer 8

Types
• Slow heartbeat: bradycardia
• Fast heartbeat: tachycardia
• Irregular heartbeat: flutter or fibrillation

Question 9

What is ventricular arrhythmia?

Answer 9

• Are abnormal heartbeats that originate in the lower heart chambers, calledventricles
• Causes heart to beat too fast, preventing oxygen-rich blood from circulating to the brain and body

Question 10

What are the dangers of tachycardia?

Answer 10

• It reduces diastole: which impairs the filling phase and thus the amount of blood (stroke volume) pumped out per beat
• Not enough blood coming out via the diastole phase holistically affects coronary artery perfusion