Exam 2 - Drugs used in Heart failure and arrhythmias

Question 2

Define heart failure and its pathogenesis.
* Compare the four factors of cardiac performance, and how they are altered in heart failure.
* Define the Starling law.
* Discuss how the following all contribute to EDV: ESV, passive filling, atrial contraction.
* Describe the strategies and list the major drug groups used in the treatment of acute heart failure and chronic failure.
* Draw the molecular mechanisms controlling normal cardiac contractility.
* Describe the mechanism of action of digitalis and its major effects.
* Describe the nature and mechanism of digitalis’s toxic effects on the heart.
* List positive inotropic drugs other than digitalis that have been used in heart failure.
* Explain the beneficial effects of diuretics, vasodilators, ACE inhibitors, and other drugs that lack positive inotropic effects in heart failure.
* Discuss the reasoning behind giving beta-blockers for heart failure.
* Describe non-pharmaceutical intervention for HF.
* List the different types of arrhythmias.
* Illustrate the intrinsic conduction system and subsequent EKG reading.
* Compare the different types of ion channels, their operation, and contribution to the cardiac action potential.
* Describe the process of sodium channel recycling and the positions of the m and h gates.
* Draw the cardiac action potential including the phases and what is occurring at each phase.
* Differentiate disturbances in impulse formation and impulse conduction.
* Describe EKG differences in heart block.
* Describe the function and distinguishing components of the 4 major groups of antiarrhythmic drugs.
* List 1 or 2 of the most important drugs in each of the 4 groups (and 3 subgroups of I) of antiarrhythmics. List the major toxicities of those drugs.
* Describe the effects of adenosine of SVT.
* List non-pharmacological therapy for arrhythmias.
* Organize the anti-arrhythmia drugs based on treatment use in acute and chronic care.